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Gabriele Griffin
Gender Studies, University of Hull, UK
'Diasporic Subjects: Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain'
The last twenty years have seen a steady increase in the number of Black and Asian women playwrights working in key theatre sites in Britain. In the main these are either women whose parents migrated to the UK, or women who arrived in the UK as young children, or women who were born and educated in Britain. The emergence and publication of their work (eg Wandor, ed. 1985; Remnant, ed. 1986; Brewster, ed. 1986, 1989, 1995; Davis, ed. 1987; Harwood, ed. 1989; Remnant, ed. 1990; George, ed. 1993; Gupta 1997; Mason-John 1999; Rapi and Chowdry 1999) has coincided with increasing, and increasingly public, debates about race relations in the UK, necessitated by continued racist attacks against Black and Asian people, racial harrassment and racialized violence in institutional and extra-institutional settings. Drawing on Avtar Brah's notion of the 'diaspora space', and referencing issues such as arranged marriages, and divergent sexualities this paper will analyse the ways in which Black and Asian women playwrights negotiate the diasporic existence that informs their work.
Bio: Professor Gabriele Griffin's research focuses on 20th century women's cultural production. She co-edits the journal Feminist Theory (Sage). Recent publications include Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain (Cambridge UP, 2003); Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing (Routledge, 2002); Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women's Studies (Zedbooks, 2002); and HIV/AIDS: Visibility Blue/s (Manchester UP, 2000). She co-ordinates an EU-funded research project on 'Employment, Equal Opportunities and Women's Studies'.
<G.Griffin@hull.ac.uk>