following world war ii, german antifascists and nationalists in buenos aires believed theater was crucial to their highly politicized efforts at community-building, and each population devoted considerable resources to competing against its rival onstage. competing germanies tracks the paths of several stage actors from european theaters to buenos aires and explores how two of argentina's most influential immigrant groups, german nationalists and antifascists (jewish and non-jewish), clashed on the city's stages. covered widely in german- and spanish-language media, theatrical performances articulated strident nazi, antifascist, and zionist platforms. meanwhile, as their thespian representatives grappled onstage for political leverage among emigrants and argentines, behind the curtain, conflicts simmered within partisan institutions and among theatergoers. publicly they projected unity, but offstage nationalist, antifascist, and zionist populations were rife with infighting on issues of political allegiance, cultural identity and, especially, integration with their argentine hosts.

competing germanies reveals interchange and even mimicry between antifascist and nationalist german cultural institutions. furthermore, performances at both theaters also fit into contemporary invocations of diasporas, including taboos and postponements of return to the native country, connections among multiple communities, and forms of longing, memory, and (dis)identification. sharply divergent at first glance, their shared condition as cultural institutions of emigrant populations caused the antifascist free german stage and the nationalist german theater to adopt parallel tactics in community-building, intercultural relationships, and dramatic performance.

its cross-cultural, polyglot blend of german, jewish, and latin american studies gives competing germanies a wide, interdisciplinary academic appeal and offers a novel intervention in exile studies through the lens of theater, in which both victims of nazism and its adherents remain in focus.

unlike the benevolent orphan found in charlie chaplin's the kid or the sentimentalized figure of little orphan annie, the orphan in postwar eastern european cinema takes on a more politically fraught role, embodying the tensions of individuals struggling to recover from war and grappling with an unknown future under soviet rule. by exploring films produced in postwar hungary, the german democratic republic, czechoslovakia, romania, and poland, parvulescu traces the way in which cinema envisioned and debated the condition of the post-world war ii subject and the "new man" of soviet-style communism. in these films, the orphan becomes a cinematic trope that interrogates socialist visions of ideological institutionalization and re-education and stands as a silent critic of the system's shortcomings or as a resilient spirit who has resisted capture by the political apparatus of the new state.

in this fascinating reappraisal of the non-literary drama of the late 19th - early 20th century, christopher fitz-simon discloses a unique world of plays, players and producers in metropolitan theatres in ireland and other countries where ireland was viewed as a source of extraordinary topics at once contemporary and comfortably remote: revolution, eviction, famine, agrarian agitation, political assassination.

the form was the fashionable one of melodrama, yet irish melodrama was of a particular kind replete with hidden messages, and the language was far more allusive, colourful and entertaining than that of its english equivalent. there was much diversity, as shown in plays as different as murray & shine's an irish gentleman, hubert o'grady's the priest hunter, j.w.whitbread's the victoria cross and edward selden's mckenna's flirtation.

this book investigates the spaces of interaction between portuguese and brazilian modernists--specifically oswald de andrade, augusto de campos and haroldo de campos, ronald de carvalho, ant nio ferro, fernando pessoa, m rio de s -carneiro--and their interpretation of nation. most importantly, the way in which their work echoes and transfigures the ulysses myth, to be termed portuguese ulyssism by brazilian gilberto freyre in his reading of lu's vaz de cam es's epic poem the lusiads, is analyzed, underlining the presence of a postcolonial ulysses in the lusophone world. the trope of the shipwreck is central to the creative production of these atlantic modernists who, outside of their respective national literatures, interact beyond the territories of nation-states through texts on exile, national identity, and colonialism.

in addition to the renowned the lusiads, the texts studied include two issues of the luso-brazilian quarterly orpheu (1915) and ant nio ferro's contributions to brazil's klaxon (1922, in celebration of the centenary of brazil's political independence from portugal); oswald de andrade's anthropophagic manifesto (1928) and an unpublished letter to ferro; fernando pessoa's poem "ulysses" in message (1934); and haroldo de campos's galaxies (1984) and "finismundo: the last voyage" (1997). in a postcolonial ulysses in the lusophone world, relocations and transfigurations of the ulysses myth inform a dialogue between the modernists of portugal and brazil through texts on exile, national identity, and colonialism.