• Through a close re-examination of Eugene O'Neill's oeuvre, from minor plays to his Pulitzer-winning works, this study proposes that O'Neill's vision of tragedy privileges a particular emotional response over a more "rational" one among his audience members. In addition to offering a new paradigm through which to interpret O'Neill's work, this book argues that O'Neill's theory of tragedy is a robust account of the value of difficult theatre as a whole, with more explanatory scope and power than i…Read more
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    Not Another Image of Torment: Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, and Theatricality
    In Brian Pines & Douglas Burnham (eds.), Understanding Nietzsche, Understanding Modernism, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 135-147. 2018.
    Nietzsche’s early philosophy is marked by the sentiment that “only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified (BT §5),” however, in aphorism 313 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche writes: No image of torment: I want to follow Raphael’s example and never paint another image of torment. There are enough sublime things; one does not have to seek out sublimity where it lives in sisterhood with cruelty; anyway, my ambition would find no satisfaction if I wanted to make mysel…Read more
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    Tragedy Beyond Pity: A Nietzschean Appraisal of Exorcism
    Eugene O'Neill Review 2 (39): 250-269. 2018.
    Eugene O'Neill's discarded one-act play Exorcism, a biographical work depicting his suicide attempt in 1911, was described by reviewers at the time as a tragedy, yet it seems strange to characterize the play this way. I argue that from an interpretive point of view, especially focused in Nietzsche's critique of pity, this play can be rightly interpreted as a tragedy. Specific references to Thus Spake Zarathustra and Nietzsche's doctrine of Eternal Return seem to be prevalent in the play, and alt…Read more
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