Emma Goldman: passion, politics, and the theatrics of free expression

Abstract

The article is an exploration of the ways in which Emma Goldman was both a virtuoso of political theatrics-especially effective in a period when challenging ideas were suppressed-and an advocate of politically conscious theater. Goldman was among the first to bring awareness of European modern drama to the USA. Her appreciation for the theater was an integral part of her intellectual development and a strategic component of a political strategy that aspired to embrace all aspects of the human experience. The themes addressed in the plays about which she lectured and wrote served an integrative role-crossing class, ethnic, and national boundaries. Goldman herself lived with a high sense of drama, and played an imposing role on the political stage, which resonates even today.

Sexual Freedom and the Promise of Revolution: Emma Goldman's Passion

“…She finds her hopes that Reitman would be a fellow political and intellectual, as well as sexual, traveller dashed, and comes to doubt her own belief that love could conquer political fallibility and weakness, could inaugurate rather than stultify a revolutionary politics. 8 Yet in her autobiography written some fifteen years later, Goldman has a more ironic take on their dynamic, 7 See Kennedy (1999) and Falk (2002) for more detailed analyses of Goldman's theatricality as central to her anarchist vision of a future lived now.…”

Emma Goldman e as chamas gêmeas da revolta: vida e arte na construção da individualidade humana em leitura anarquista de Max Stirner e Henrik Ibsen

“…Candace Falk chega a ensaiar esse tópico, pontuando como a anarquista emprega a metáfora do drama não apenas como artimanha para desviar o olhar de seus censores, mas também como veículo para explorar uma humanidade compartilhada com seu público. 511 É fato que, com seu iniludível sarcasmo, Emma Goldman desafiava as convenções de amizades moralizantes, diluindo as barreiras entre o palco e o público. Artistas românticos e anarquistas expressariam a vitalidade de verdades ainda não assimiladas por grandes parcelas da população, atuando em uma nau sem timoneiro, aproximando-se das crianças em seu esconjuro do racionalismo moderno.…”