Bogumil, Mary L. 1955- (M. L. Bogumil)

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Bogumil, Mary L. 1955-
(M. L. Bogumil)

PERSONAL: Born 1955; married, husband's name Michael. Education: University of South Florida, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, English-SIUC, Carbondale, IL 62901-4503. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, assistant professor of modern British and American literature.

WRITINGS:

Understanding August Wilson, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1999.

(As M. L. Bogumil; with Walter Bogumil) A Biography of Florida Union Organizer Frank E'Dalgo, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 2000.

Contributor to academic journals, including College English, American Journal of Semiotics, Massachusetts Studies in English, and Theatre Journal.

WORK IN PROGRESS: E'Dalgo: Union Man of the People.

SIDELIGHTS: An assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Mary L. Bogumil focuses on drama and multicultural American writing in her research. Blending both disciplines, she produced Understanding August Wilson, a study of the noted African-American playwright. Divided into seven chapters, the work approaches Wilson from the perspective of his role as a black writer in a biographical introduction, and then analyzes his major theater pieces, such as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, and Seven Guitars.

Bogumil writes that "in his plays August Wilson gives voice to the disfranchised and marginalized African Americans who have been promised a place and stake in the American dream only to find that access to the rights and freedoms promised to all Americans is in fact guarded and exclusive…. Wilson wants to explore the distinct differences between the white American and African American experiences."

Part of the series, "Understanding Contemporary American Literature," Bogumil's work is geared for students and nonacademic readers and, according to Brenda Murphy, reviewing the title in MELUS, "the book meets its announced aim." Murphy felt that Bogumil's study is a "useful introduction" to Wilson's work, and also that it provides a "means for understanding Wilson's work by providing a cultural context for its issues and conflicts." Writing in Modern Drama, Joseph McLaren commented that "the critical heritage of August Wilson is well served by … Bogumil."