y separately published work icon Sadness single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 1996... 1996 Sadness
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • St Leonards, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 1996 .
      Extent: 79p.
      Description: illus.
      Note/s:
      • The book of his slide shows.
      ISBN: 1864481870

Works about this Work

The Aesthetics of Simplicity: Yang's Sadness and the Melancholic Community Gilbert Caluya , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Intercultural Studies , February vol. 27 no. 1-2 2006; (p. 83-100)
This essay makes use of the work of semioticians such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag to discuss William Yang's Sadness (1996). Caluya chooses not to interpret Sadness as an autobiography. He prefers to mobilise the realism of photographic and anecdotal detail in what he terms 'an aesthetics of simplicity', ultimately reframing the work through tropes of loss and melancholia and considering how it intervenes 'in the ethics and politics of grief as an art work' (paraphrased from author's abstract).
'Homescapes' and Identity Reformations in Australian Multicultural Drama Joanne Tompkins , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Theatre Research International , vol. 26 no. 1 2001; (p. 47-59)
A consideration of identity formation in contemporary Australian multicultural theatre is offered through a re-assessment of the unsettled (and unsettling) constructions of Australia as 'home' in the work of three playwrights. William Yang's Sadness disrupts a localized perception of home, space, and cultural communities to amalgamate two disparate communities (the queer/homosexual community in Sydney and the Asian-Australian, or 'Austasian' community) into a reconfigured Australian identity. Janis Balodis's The Ghosts Trilogy uses many actors who play across the unsettled lines of history, amid numerous voices, homes, and homelands that indicate the enormity of what 'Australia' comes to signify. Noëlle Janaczewska's The History of Water constructs a way of locating the self by means of a metaphoric home as each character establishes herself on a psychic plane rather than choosing the strictly physical locations to which she has access. In their interrogations of home and homeland, these plays challenge assumptions regarding identity, disrupt notions of the ultimate ownership of land/culture by anyone, and problematize the idea of settlement as it is currently articulated in Australia.
'Homescapes' and Identity Reformations in Australian Multicultural Drama Joanne Tompkins , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Theatre Research International , vol. 26 no. 1 2001; (p. 47-59)
A consideration of identity formation in contemporary Australian multicultural theatre is offered through a re-assessment of the unsettled (and unsettling) constructions of Australia as 'home' in the work of three playwrights. William Yang's Sadness disrupts a localized perception of home, space, and cultural communities to amalgamate two disparate communities (the queer/homosexual community in Sydney and the Asian-Australian, or 'Austasian' community) into a reconfigured Australian identity. Janis Balodis's The Ghosts Trilogy uses many actors who play across the unsettled lines of history, amid numerous voices, homes, and homelands that indicate the enormity of what 'Australia' comes to signify. Noëlle Janaczewska's The History of Water constructs a way of locating the self by means of a metaphoric home as each character establishes herself on a psychic plane rather than choosing the strictly physical locations to which she has access. In their interrogations of home and homeland, these plays challenge assumptions regarding identity, disrupt notions of the ultimate ownership of land/culture by anyone, and problematize the idea of settlement as it is currently articulated in Australia.
The Aesthetics of Simplicity: Yang's Sadness and the Melancholic Community Gilbert Caluya , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Intercultural Studies , February vol. 27 no. 1-2 2006; (p. 83-100)
This essay makes use of the work of semioticians such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag to discuss William Yang's Sadness (1996). Caluya chooses not to interpret Sadness as an autobiography. He prefers to mobilise the realism of photographic and anecdotal detail in what he terms 'an aesthetics of simplicity', ultimately reframing the work through tropes of loss and melancholia and considering how it intervenes 'in the ethics and politics of grief as an art work' (paraphrased from author's abstract).
Last amended 8 Jul 2004 15:56:08
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