Mendel’s Theatre

TAMSEN WOLFF is Assistant Professor of English at Princeton University, USA.

• Predecessors: Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Brieux, and Heredity From Peas To People:  Theatre and the American Eugenics Movement Experimental Breeding Ground: Susan Glaspell, Mutation, Maternity , and The Verge Branching out From the Family Tree: Bloodlines and Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude A Genealogy of American Theatre: Show Boat , Angelina Weld Grimké's Rachel, and the Black Body

"Learned, insightful, and engaging, Mendel's Theatre is an impressive and groundbreaking study. Its critical voice is assured, and it establishes a new way of thinking about the relationships among drama, theatre, and social theory during the early twentieth century." - Theatre Survey"While much has been made of American theatre's (and modern theatre's in general) obsession with heredity, little exists on eugenics itself, much less anything so thoroughly presented and articulated. The term Mendel's Theatre will likely turn into a much-used phrase when twentieth-century drama is discussed, inescapable as it will be to ignore what is here presented in the future." - William W. Demastes, Professor of English, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge"Mendel's Theatre transcends the disciplinary boundaries of theatre scholarship to also explore the history of science, social movements, and philosophy. Wolff s ambitious and meticulously researched book offers both a broad view of eugenics evolution in the United States, and pointed analyses of canonical American plays that deal implicitly or explicitly with the issues and concerns of eugenics." - Broadside