The mobility of suffering: cosmopolitan ethics in Debbie Tucker Green’s plays

  • debbie tucker green’s theatre can be seen as a reaction to the state of heightened mobility in a globalised world in which social problems can no longer be contained locally but inevitably register globally and vice versa. Her plays that move remote suffering to the centre of attention qualify as cosmopolitan for two reasons: Not only do they address such suffering by making use of globally diverse settings, but they also express cosmopolitanism’s belief in an undeniable responsibility for the other that connects all humankind. The plays make a cosmopolitan ethical appeal by facilitating an immediate affective accessibility of faraway suffering with an aesthetic strategy that can be described as ‘universalisation through familiarisation’: Devices such as cross-racial casting or the use of universally familiar constellations like the family are used to lend mobility to the abstract hardships of remote others, allowing them to intrude into the familiar world of the audience’s concretedebbie tucker green’s theatre can be seen as a reaction to the state of heightened mobility in a globalised world in which social problems can no longer be contained locally but inevitably register globally and vice versa. Her plays that move remote suffering to the centre of attention qualify as cosmopolitan for two reasons: Not only do they address such suffering by making use of globally diverse settings, but they also express cosmopolitanism’s belief in an undeniable responsibility for the other that connects all humankind. The plays make a cosmopolitan ethical appeal by facilitating an immediate affective accessibility of faraway suffering with an aesthetic strategy that can be described as ‘universalisation through familiarisation’: Devices such as cross-racial casting or the use of universally familiar constellations like the family are used to lend mobility to the abstract hardships of remote others, allowing them to intrude into the familiar world of the audience’s concrete experience. Implicitly, this entails the demand to accept responsibility for and, eventually, take action against global suffering, which is the core of any cosmopolitan ethics.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Martin RiedelsheimerGND, Korbinian StöcklGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-opus4-677789
Frontdoor URLhttps://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/67778
ISSN:2195-0164OPAC
ISSN:2195-0156OPAC
Parent Title (English):Journal of Contemporary Drama in English
Publisher:De Gruyter Mouton
Type:Article
Language:English
Date of first Publication:2017/04/28
Publishing Institution:Universität Augsburg
Release Date:2020/01/17
Tag:cosmopolitanism; globalisation; ethics; precarity; debbie tucker green
Volume:5
Issue:1
First Page:112
Last Page:125
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2017-0009
Institutes:Philologisch-Historische Fakultät
Philologisch-Historische Fakultät / Anglistik / Amerikanistik
Philologisch-Historische Fakultät / Anglistik / Amerikanistik / Lehrstuhl für Englische Literaturwissenschaft
Dewey Decimal Classification:8 Literatur / 82 Englische, altenglische Literaturen / 820 Englische, altenglische Literaturen
Licence (German):Deutsches Urheberrecht