Christoph Irmscher Summary

Irmscher, Christoph. ““The Absolute Power of a Man”? Staging Masculinity in Giacomo Puccini and David Henry Hwang.” Amerikastudien/ American Studies 43.4 (1998): 619-28. JSTOR. Web. 22 Oct. 2014

Christoph Irmscher, a George F. Getz Jr. Professor in the Wells Scholars Program , in this article focuses on Hwang’s expansion of intercultural conflicts by critiquing the concepts of masculinity and authorship. A teacher and writer of nineteenth and twentieth century American and Canadian literature, Irmscher’s article intends a scholarly audience and explores how Gallimard does not remain only a character in the play, but assumes authorship to gain control over the concept of “Oriental” Butterfly. Though the author does not provide a bibliography, he arranges for the sources of the articles in details as footnotes which proves to be of immense help for academic purposes. The author is objective and impartial in his judgement and his article deals seriously with the various nuances of the opera and play. The gender power-struggle is clearly indicative of

Ilka Saal, Professor of American Literature at Universitat Erfurt, Germany authors this essay which portrays a discussion of gender and cultural stereotypes and how they are reversed by Hwang’s rewriting of the Butterfly myth in Puccini’s opera. Employing feminist and post-colonial criticism, the essay focuses on how gender and cultural relations in the play are not an immutable idea but an interaction and a performance throughout. The author follows Judith Butler in reading the cultural stereotypes, in this case the Orient and the Occident, as a daily enactment of performance. Intended for a scholarly audience, this article demonstrates how the binaries of the strong Caucasian man and docile Asian woman exist always in opposition inspite of an interaction. There is a clear recognition of misunderstandings and misconceptions which complicate the power relationships between the East and the