: The volume features analysis on how Kushner "queers" history by interrupting traditional narratives of progress and national exceptionalism, creating what some call an "angel archive" to explore a different future. Key Essays and Contributors
: Contributes a seminal piece on the intersections of queer and Jewish identities, specifically through the character of Roy Cohn. Tony Kushner (Bloom's Modern Critical Views)
: Harold Bloom argues in his introduction that while Kushner views himself as a political dramatist, his true power lies in his spiritual and metaphysical explorations. Bloom identifies Kushner’s literary "ancestors" as Walt Whitman and Herman Melville , rather than strictly political figures like Bertolt Brecht. : The volume features analysis on how Kushner
: Provides the introductory essay focusing on Kushner’s place within the Western canon and his connection to 19th-century American epics. : Noted for his extensive scholarship on the
: Critics like Carla Bryony Douglas and James Fisher (whom Bloom calls a leading Kushner scholar) explore how Kushner’s plays negotiate human suffering and the potential for change through political activism, even in the face of spiritual depletion.
: Noted for his extensive scholarship on the entirety of Kushner’s career, including "minor" works like A Bright Room Called Day and Hydriotaphia . Summary of Critical Reception