Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Eleanor Roosevelt : Theatrical Emotion for Political Benefit
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This article explores the performance of emotions in relation to gender identity in the fulfilment of public duties in the modernist era. It explains how emotions were knowingly expressed and evoked in public appearances by Eleanor Roosevelt (Eleanor) to political purpose. The article outlines the formal and informal connections between the Americans, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Australians, Herbert and Mary Alice (Mary Alice) Evatt, developed in the play Eleanor and Mary Alice and how these influenced national alliances in wartime and the subsequent United Nations' refugee policies. The article further explains how gendered attitudes to emotion both facilitated these processes as it blinkered recognition of their vital function and obscured the contributions of Eleanor and Mary Alice. Cast in a motherly, caring role as the President's wife, Eleanor contradictorily showed considerable courage - as did Mary Alice - as well as leadership. 

'It is argued that the consideration of emotions in modernist politics and within its gendered patterns can be framed as an identifiable theatrical process and by utilising the idea of substitution. While these historical events proved foundational to subsequent alliances between Australia and the United States, the emotional dynamics surrounding political events remain implicit. Yet such examples of performed emotion as a controlled condition offer crucial insights about political decision-making.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australasian Drama Studies Appraising Aesthetic Modernisms in Australian Theatre: Patrick White and Beyond no. 71 October 2017 12749766 2017 periodical issue

    'This Special Issue began life as a one-day symposium at the University of Melbourne in November 2015, called ‘Reappraising Aesthetic Modernisms in Australian Theatre: Patrick White and Beyond’. It aimed to re-engage with the question of modernism as a style, a question of form and an approach to dramaturgy and theatricality in the Australian and international contexts. Some of the articles in this issue were first presented at the Melbourne symposium, while those by theatre artists Kerry Dwyer and Nicola Heywood started out as talks given at ‘Ten Questions about the Australian Theatrical Avant-Garde’, a symposium held at the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney in November 2016, co-convened by Ian Maxwell and Mike Mullins. As a collection, the articles featured in this issue address the question and the problem of aesthetic modernism and its impact on twentieth-century Australian playwriting, performance and staging practices.' (Editorial introduction)

    2017
    pg. 137-156
Last amended 19 Jan 2018 12:59:31
137-156 Eleanor Roosevelt : Theatrical Emotion for Political Benefitsmall AustLit logo Australasian Drama Studies
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