Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth Century Literature and Culture Series

Interculturalism and Resistance in the London Theater, 1660 - 1800

by Mita Choudhury

Published 1 February 2001

In Interculturalism and Resistance in the London Theater, Mita Choudhury argues that the eighteenth-century British theater is a dynamic expression and register of the anxieties and tensions of a culture poised for global supremacy. By strategic consideration of political and intellectual alliances that the theater inspired and stifled, and through discussions of a wide cross-section of performance practices from the time of Dryden to that of Inchbald, Choudhury demonstrates the power of performativity in a culture of ascendancy. She argues that nationalism, as both active movement and contemplative ideology, cannot be separated from the themes of expansionism that propel the many incentives, principles, and sites of performance. In an original contribution to criticism, Interculturalism and Resistance demonstrates the eighteenth-century theatrical culture's ambivalence toward what has recently been described as the "exoticism of multiculturalism."