Kenneth Gross, Renaissance scholar and professor of English at the 人妻少妇专区, will share the 2011-2012 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for his book Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life. Cornell University鈥檚 Department of English, which administers the prize, calls it one of the most distinguished in American theater.
Endowed by the theater critic George Jean Nathan in 1959, the annual award is honors an American 鈥渨ho has written the best piece of drama criticism during the theatrical year,鈥� whether in the form of an essay or book. The award committee includes heads of English departments at Cornell, Princeton, and Yale Universities.
Past recipients include writers Elizabeth Hardwick, Jan Kott, Daniel Mendelsohn, Michael Goldman, and Herbert Blau. 鈥淢any of the previous awardees are writers who I have taken for models, teachers, and have read hungrily for many years, writers who changed my sense of theater,鈥� said Gross.
Gross鈥檚 Puppet, the Nathan judges wrote, 鈥渙ffers a brilliantly idiosyncratic meditation on the fascination 鈥榳ooden acting鈥� exerts over its delighted but often unnerved human audiences.鈥�
鈥淭he puppet creates delight and fear,鈥� Gross said of his subject. 鈥淚t can call to mind the innocent play of childhood or become a tool of ritual magic, an entity able to negotiate with ghosts and gods. Puppets can be creepy things, secretive, inanimate yet full of spirit, alive with gesture and voice.鈥�
Drawing on travels in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, Israel, and Indonesia, the book鈥檚 subjects include the anarchic 鈥淧unch and Judy鈥� show, the sacred shadow theater of Bali, Japanese Bunraku puppetry, and experimental puppet theaters in Europe and the United States. 鈥淢any people’s experience with puppet theater is that it is something that belongs to children,鈥� said Gross. 鈥淚 wanted to honor that connection, with its link to a world of play, but also to describe the stark effect it can have on adult theatergoers, including poets and visual artists.鈥�
Gross shares the prize with Jonathan Kalb, professor of theater at Hunter College, for his book, Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theatre. Both authors, the Awards committee wrote, realized Nathan鈥檚 desire 鈥渢o encourage and assist in developing the art of drama criticism and the stimulation of intelligent playgoing.鈥�
Gross received his doctorate from Yale University in 1982 and has taught English at the 人妻少妇专区 for nearly 30 years. He is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies in English. His previous books include Shylock is Shakespeare (University of Chicago Press 2006), Shakespeare鈥檚 Noise (University of Chicago Press, 2001), The Dream of the Moving Statue (Cornell University Press, 1995), and Spenserian Poetics: Idolatry, Iconoclasm, and Magic (Cornell University Press, 1985). He is the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy in Berlin, and received the university鈥檚 Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2010.
For additional information on the George Jean Nathan Award visit, .
