The Haptic Aesthetic in Samuel Beckett's Drama

In their sparse and isolated spaces, Samuel Beckett's figures imagine the touch of a lost love or dream of the comfort and care that the hands of a dear one might bring. Applying philosophical writings that feature sensation, particularly touch, this study examines how Beckett's later work for stage and screen dramatizes moments of contact between self and self, self and world, and self and other. With implications for how gender and ethics can be approached within Beckett's aesthetic, this study explores the employment of haptic imagery as an alternative to certain dominant codes of visual representation.

Samuel Beckett, the Gate Theatre Dublin, and the contemporary Irish independent theater sector: fragments of performance history

From 1991, when the Dublin Gate Theatre launched their Samuel Beckett Festival featuring nineteen of Beckett’s stage plays, to more recent years, the Gate dominated Irish productions of Beckett’s theater. The Gate Beckett Festival was remounted in 1996 at the Lincoln Center, New York, and at the Barbican Centre, London, in 1999, and individual or grouped productions have toured regularly since then in Ireland and internationally. However, since the Irish premiere of Waiting of Godot at the Pike Theatre in 1955, in addition to several Beckett plays mounted by the National Theatre, many independent Irish theater companies, such as Focus Theatre, Druid Theatre, and more recently Pan Pan Theatre, Blue Raincoat Theatre, The Corn Exchange, and Company SJ (under director Sarah Jane Scaife), have produced Beckett’s drama. While acknowledging earlier Irish productions, this essay will consider the role of the Dublin Gate Beckett Festival and the Beckett Centenary celebrations in Dublin in 2006 in greatly enhancing the marketability of Beckett’s work, and will discuss the proliferation of productions of Beckett’s stage plays (as opposed to stage adaptations of the prose work, which is a topic for another essay) in the independent theater sector in the Republic of Ireland since 2006. In addition to giving an overview of these recent productions, the essay will consider some issues at stake in creating or constructing performance histories

Samuel Beckett's digital library

A digital reconstruction of Samuel Beckett's personal library, based on the volumes preserved at his apartment in Paris, in archives (Beckett International Foundation) and private collections (James and Elizabeth Knowlson Collection, Anne Atik, Noga Arikha, Terrence Killeen,...).

A Psychoanalytic Reading of Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Much has been written about Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, but as far as I am aware no one has compared the two characters of Vladimir and Estragon in order to analyse what makes Vladimir more willing to wait than Estragon. This essay claims that Vladimir is more willing to wait because he cannot deal with the fact that they might be waiting in vain and he involves himself more in his surrounding than Estragon. It is Vladimir who waits for Godot, not Estragon, and Vladimir believes that Godot will have all the answers. This will be explored by examining four topics, all of which will be dealt with from a psychoanalytical point of view and in relation to waiting. Consciousness in relation to the decision to wait; Uncertainty in relation to the unknown outcome of waiting; Coping mechanisms in relation to ways of dealing with waiting; Ways of waiting in relation to waiting-time and two kinds of waiting-characters.

Vilka är det som stryker omkring? : En studie av lösdriveriet i Östersund 1885-1899

Uppsatsens syfte är att utifrån lösdrivarprotokoll från stadsfiskalen i Östersund att kartlägga och utforska lösdriveriet i Östersund under åren 1885-1899. Dessa protokoll har sammanställts för att kunna besvara frågor om lösdriveriets omfattning i staden, lösdrivarnas demografi, omständigheterna kring deras fasttagande och mantalsskrivningsort. Uppsatsens resultat har också, i en komparativ del, satts i relation till studier över lösdrivarsituationen i andra städer under den aktuella tiden, för att på så sätt jämföra Östersunds lösdriveri i förhållande till andra delar av Sverige.Resultatet visar att totalt 304 fall av lösdriveri finns dokumenterat i Östersund under den aktuella tiden, och den största andelen anhölls mellan åren 1889-1893. En stor majoritet av lösdrivarna var män, kvinnorna utgör endast 9 procent av Östersunds lösdrivare. Medelåldern var strax under 36 år och det vanligaste yrket var arbetare. Studien visar att den geografiska spridningen av lösdrivarna mantalsskrivningsort var stor och nästintill alla Sveriges län finns representerade.

Tatler (Volume 2 1899)

The Winthrop yearbook was published from 1898 to 2002. It has been known as the Tatler since its inception except for 1904 (Lang Syne) and 1918 (Tatler a la Guerre). No yearbook was published in 1900, 1902, 1903, 1905,1906.