Loren Kruger
Loren Kruger is a South African writer, editor, and translator based in Chicago. She holds a BA (Hons.) in English and Mathematics from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Cornell University, and completed independent study at the Institut d'études théâtrales at the University of Paris III and the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft at the Free University in Berlin. She edited Theatre Journal from 1996 to 1999, and served as contributing editor for Theatre Research International in 2002 and 2003 and taught comparative literature, theatre and performance studies, cinema and media studies, and African studies at the University of Chicago (1986-2024).[1] Her areas of expertise and ongoing research include theatre and performance in Europe and the Americas as well as in her native South Africa, cinema and other media, and urban life and cultures in global, local and glocal contexts. Her published work includes books, translation, and articles, some of which are listed below, and reviews of live performance in Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
Kruger's research has been supported by fellowships from the Crasnow Foundation in South Africa, as well as from Cornell University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation in the United States, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) twice for research in Berlin. Her publications have won awards including the Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Study from the Modern Language Association and the Philadelphia Constantinidis Prize from the Comparative Drama Association.[2][3] She has been honored for her editorial work by the Association of Theatre in Higher Education for her work editingTheatre Journal, including special issues on Enacting Americans, South Africa, Diaspora and the Politics of Home, and Theatre and Capital, and by the American Society of Theatre Research for working with emerging authors whose articles in Theatre Journal won the ASTR's Gerard Kahan Prize in 1997 and 1998.
Books
- A Century of South African Literature. London: Bloomsbury. 2019.[4][5][6]
- Imagining the Edgy City: Writing, Performing and Building Johannesburg. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013.[7][8][9][10]
- Post-Imperial Brecht: Politics and Performance, South and East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004.[11][12][13][14]
- Winner: Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Study, Modern Language Association, 2005,[2]
- The Drama of South Africa. London: Routledge, 1999[15][16]
- The National Stage: Theatre and Cultural Legitimation in England, France, and America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992
Translations
- Pottier, Eugène (2024). Kruger, Loren (ed.). Beyond the Internationale: Revolutionary Writing. Translated by Kruger, Loren. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr.
- The Institutions of Art by Peter Bürger and Christa Bürger. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992
- Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture by Patrice Pavis. London: Routledge, 1991
- Lights and Shadows: the Autobiography of Leontine Sagan. Edited with an introduction by Loren Kruger. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1996
Selected articles
- "Black Irony: Modernism, Mimicry, and African America in the Drama of Lewis Nkosi". Research in African Literature. 54 (1): 1–17. 2023. doi:10.2979/ral.2023.a915636.
- "Theatre and Capital Once Again". Theatre Journal. 75 (4): 389–97. 2023. doi:10.1353/tj.2023.a922210.
- "Brechtian Theatre and the Glocal South". Unitas. 95 (2): 114–35. 2022.
- Performance, Politics and Historiography: American Responses to the Paris Commune. Pamietnik Teatralny 70: 4 (2021): 70-100
- Performance and Politics at a Time of Confinement: Virtual Stages between South Africa and African America, Critical Stages no. 23 (2021: special issue on performance and politics)
- Glocal South Sides: Race, Capital and Performing Against Injustice, Theatre Journal 72 (4): 469-85. 2020
- White Cities, Black Streets: Planned Violence and Native Maps in Richard Wright's Chicago and Modikwe Dikobe's Johannesburg. Planned Violence: Post/Colonial Urban Infrastructure, Literature and Culture. Ed. Elleke Boehmer and Dominic Davies. London: Palgrave, 2018: 29-47
- "The Soweto Uprisings Forty Years On: Usable Pasts and Uncertain Futures" Research in African Literatures 48: 4: 50-55. 2017
- "Brecht: Our Contemporary? (Un)timely translation and the politics of transmission." Theatre Journal 68 (2): 299-309. 2016
- Dispossession and Solidarity in Athol Fugard and Juan Radrigán. Theatre Research International 40: 3 (2015); 314-31
- Cape Town and the Sustainable CIty in the Writings of Henrietta Rose-Innes, Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 2:(1-2)
- "On Tedium: an Essay on Drag, Attunement, Theatre and Translation". Comparative Drama. 48 (4): 393–413. 2014. doi:10.1353/cdr.2014.0032.
- The Drama of Hospitality: Performance, Migration, and Urban Renewal in Johannesburg. Performance and the Global City. Ed. D.J. Hopkins and Kim Solgar. New York: Palgrave, 2013: 19-39
- What Time is this Place? Continuity, Conflict and the Right to the City: Lessons from Haymarket Square. Performance and the Politics of Space. Ed. Erika Fischer-Lichte and Benjamin Wihstutz. London: Routledge, 2012: 46-65
- Kruger, Loren (2012). "On the Tragedy of the Commoner: Elektra, Orestes and Others in South Africa". Comparative Drama. 46 (3): 355–77. doi:10.1353/cdr.2012.0024. Winner: Philadelphia Constantinidis Prize, 2013.[17][18]
- "Theatre: Regulation, Resistance, Recovery. In Cambridge History of South African Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2012: 564-86
- "Beyond the TRC: Truth, Power, and Representation in South Africa After Transition. Research in African Literatures 42 (2): 184-96. 2011
- "Critique by Stealth: Aspiration, Commodification and Class in Post-Apartheid Television Drama, Critical Arts 24 (1) (special issue: cultural economy): 2010: 75-98.
- "Cold Chicago: Uncivil Modernity, Urban Form, and Performance in the Upstart City, "TDR—Journal of Performance Studies 53 (3): 10-36. 2009
- "The National Stage and the Naturalized House: (Trans)National Legitimation in Modern Europe," in National Theatres in a Changing Europe, ed. S.E. Wilmer, New York; Palgrave-Macmillan), 2008: 34-48; 239-54
- "White Cities, Diamond Zulus and the African Contribution to Human Advancement: African Modernities at the World Fairs," TDR--Journal of Performance Studies 51(3) 19-45, 2007.
- "Positive Heros and Abject Bodies in Heiner Müller's Production Plays." New German Critique 98: 15-47. 2006
- "Geographical Acts: Place, Performance, and Pedagogy." American Literary History 17 (4): 781-93. 2005.
- History Plays (in) Britain: Dramas, Nations, and Inventing the Present in Redefining British Theater History, vol 1: Theorizing Practice, ed. Peter Holland and W.B. Worthen. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan 2004: 151-76
- With Patricia Watson [Shariff] “ ‘Shoo—this book makes me to think!’ Education, Entertainment, and ‘Life skills Comics’ in South Africa." South Africa in the Global Imaginary. Ed. Louise Bethlehem, Leon de Kock and Sonja Laden. Leiden: Brill, 2004
References
- ^ "Loren Kruger | Department of English Language and Literature". english.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-22.
- ^ a b "Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies..." Modern Language Association. Retrieved 2024-07-22.
- ^ "Conference Awards – 46th Comparative Drama Conference, April 4-6, 2024 Orlando, Florida". Retrieved 2024-08-09.
- ^ Ravengai, Samuel (2021-11-02). "A century of South African theatre: by Loren Kruger, London, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, pp. 273, 2020, Hardback". Critical Arts. 35 (5–6): 263–266. doi:10.1080/02560046.2021.1957963. ISSN 0256-0046.
- ^ Hauptfleisch, Temple (2020-04-11). "A Century of South African Theatre". Critical Stages/Scènes critiques. Retrieved 2024-07-22.
- ^ Cima, Gibson (2021). "Loren Kruger: A Century of South African Theatre". Modern Drama. 64 (1): 117–119. doi:10.3138/md.64.1.br3 – via Project Muse.
- ^ Siegenthaler (2015). "On the Edge of Scrutinizing and Reproducing Urban Imaginations of Johannesburg". Research in African Literatures. 46 (1): 179. doi:10.2979/reseafrilite.46.1.179.
- ^ French, Gervase (November 2014). "Bibliography of urban history 2014". Urban History. 41 (4): 732–780. doi:10.1017/S0963926814000455. ISSN 0963-9268.
- ^ West-Pavlov, Russell (2014-11-02). "Imagining the Edgy City: Writing, Performing, and Building Johannesburg". Journal of Southern African Studies. 40 (6): 1372–1374. doi:10.1080/03057070.2014.967592. ISSN 0305-7070.
- ^ Blumberg, Marcia. 2014-12. Review of Imagining the Edgy City by Loren Kruger (Oxford University Press, 2013), Modern Drama 57 (4): 538-40
- ^ Cole, Catherine M. (May 2006). "Post-Imperial Brecht: Politics and Performance, East and South". Theatre Survey. 47 (1): 121–123. doi:10.1017/S0040557406260095. ISSN 1475-4533.
- ^ Tatlow, Antony (June 2005). "Post-imperial Brecht: Politics and Performance, East and South (review)". Modern Drama. 48 (2): 444–448. doi:10.1353/mdr.2005.0038. ISSN 1712-5286.
- ^ Müller-Schöll, Nikolaus (March 2006). "Post-Imperial Brecht. Politics and Performance, East and South. By Loren Kruger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv + 399 + illus. £55; 39.95 Hb". Theatre Research International. 31 (1): 101–102. doi:10.1017/S0307883305211914. ISSN 1474-0672.
- ^ Horn, Peter (2006). "Post-Imperial Brecht: Politics and Performance, East and South by Loren Kruger". Monatshefte. 98 (2): 312–13. doi:10.3368/m.XCVIII.2.312 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Koren-Deutsch, Ilona S. Theatre Journal 45, no. 3 (1993): 399–401. https://doi.org/10.2307/3208375.
- ^ "Lewis on Kruger, 'The Drama of South Africa: Plays, Pageants and Publics Since 1910' | H-Net". networks.h-net.org. Retrieved 2024-08-13. [1]
- ^ Department of English (2013-02-17). "February 17, 2013: Comparative Drama Essay Wins Award". Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive.
- ^ Department of English (2013-10-27). "October 27, 2013: SSS Comparative Drama Distinguished Lecture: Loren Kruger (U Chicago), Thurs., Nov. 7@7:00PM". Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive.