Performing Menken: Adah Isaacs Menken and the Birth of American Celebrity
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Performing Menken uses the life experiences of controversial actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken to examine the culture of the Civil War period and what Menken's choices reveal about her period. It explores the roots of the cult of celebrity that emerged from crucible of war. While discussing Menken's racial and ethnic claims and her performance of gender and sexuality, Performing Menken focuses on contemporary use of social categories to explain patterns in America's past and considers why such categories appear to remain important.
Customer Review: Gripping Diva
A fascinating detective story and a brilliant exegesis on cultural appropriation, the cult and development of superstardom, and the wildly unconventional ways in a which a Victorian Age female visionary had to struggle to make her voice heard in a restrictive pre-feminist period. Dr. Sentilles's scholarship is evenly matched by her excellent prose and narrative gifts. This is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the theater, rebel women, iconoclastic artists, and female boldness enacted during any historic age. I can't recommend it strongly enough to readers everywhere. It is also illuminating in its insights on mid-nineteenth century social chaos. I was spellbound from the first sentence of the introduction to the last resonant sentence of the final chapter; certainly every American Studies program and history department in the country should require it.
