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| Daniel H. Foster, Associate Professor of Theater Studies
| Office Location: | 03B Page Auditorium | | Office Phone: | (919) 684-3364 | | Email Address: |   |
| Web Page: | |
- Research Interests:
Daniel H. Foster is an Associate Professor of Dramatic History and Literature in Duke University’s Department of Theater Studies. He focuses on classical, modern, and contemporary theater history, literature, and criticism, with a particular interest in dramaturgy and the intersection of drama, literature, and music. In 2001 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago’s Comparative Literature Department, where he was awarded honors for his dissertation on Richard Wagner’s use of classical Greek drama and poetry as models for his operatic treatment of German myth and national identity. For further research on drama, performance studies, and music, in 2001-2002 he was awarded a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship by the University Pennsylvania Humanities Forum and taught in Penn’s Music Department. He has finished a rewrite of his dissertation for publication. Entitled The Hellenization of Politics: Wagner’s Ring Cycle and the Greeks, this book is forthcoming Cambridge University Press.
He has completed four chapters for his second book project, a transatlantic study of minstrelsy in Great Britain and the United States, The Transatlantic Minstrel Show: British Romanticism and American Blackface. This study takes up a topic that is rarely addressed in a transatlantic context. It explores how the British Romantic figure of the minstrel influenced American blackface minstrelsy. To date, he has published the findings of this research in The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Modern Language Quarterly, and presented them at conferences sponsored by the Modern Language Association and the Hope Franklin Humanities Center at Duke University. Publishers from Vanderbilt University Press and Ohio State University Press have asked for proposals for this book. Research support for this grant has been given by grants and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Duke University Theater Studies Faculty, and Duke University Arts and Sciences Faculty.
Teaching (Fall 2013): (typical courses)
- THEATRST 190S-1.02, SP TOP: READING THEATER
Synopsis
- Bryan Center 128, WF 08:30 AM-09:45 AM
- THEATRST 207S.01, RADIO: THE THEATER OF THE MIND
Synopsis
- Bryan Center 128, WF 10:05 AM-11:20 AM
- Education:
| PhD | University of Chicago | 2001 |
| MA | University of Chicago | 1993 |
| Post-Baccalaureate | University of Pennsylvania | 1992 |
| BA | St. John's College, Santa Fe | 1990 |
- Specialties:
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Dramatic Literature
Theater History
Film
Literary & Cultural Criticism
- Curriculum Vitae
- Selected Production Credits
Composing Credits
- Song Cycle for Voice and Piano-Singing Through the Veil, Duke University, December 2, 2003
Excerpts from my song cycle, Singing Through the
Veil, were performed as part of "Performing Dissent," a
collaborative show honoring the 100-year anniversary of the
Bassett Affair. The song cycle is meant to honor and
promote the ideal of higher education for African-Americans
but not at the expense of their own culture. Each of the
14 songs is based upon each of the 14 chapters in W. E. B.
Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk. All but the last
of these
chapters begins with a poetic epigram taken from a famous
European-American writer followed by a few measures from an
African-American spiritual. This song cycle is essentially
a theme and variation built upon the notes of these
spirituals married to the words of the poets. It is meant
to symbolically as well as culturally integrate African-
American and European-American culture.
Dramaturgy Credits
- Dramaturg Credits, Duke University, Autumn 2003
Dramaturg for Marlane Meyer's Why Things Burn
directed by Jody McAuliffe
- Recent Publications
(More Publications)
- D.H. Foster. The Minstrel's Progress: From British Bards to American Blackface, 1750 to 1850. Oxford University Press,
(under review).
- D.H. Foster. "“The Phoenix Bard”." Romanticism (under review).
- D.H. Foster. "From Das Volk to The Souls of Black Folk: Double-Consciousness and Form in W. E. B. Du Bois." African American Review (under review).
- D.H. Foster. "Writing the Highlands." Studies in Romanticism (under review).
- D.H. Foster. Wagner's "Ring" Cycle and the Greeks. Cambridge University Press,
(February, 2010).
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