DEMASTES, William W. 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born March 29, 1956, in Fort Benning, GA; son of Wilmon W. (in U.S. Army) and Ruth (a homemaker; maiden name, Hofbauer) Demastes; married Jean Rohloff (a college teacher), November 27, 1987; children: Erin. Ethnicity: "White." Education: University of California, Berkeley, A.B., 1977; University of Georgia, M.A., 1979; University of Wisconsin, Madison, Ph.D., 1986.

ADDRESSES:

Home—5027 Abelia Dr., Baton Rouge, LA 70808. Office—Department of English, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5001; fax: 225-578-6447. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Alabama State University, Montgomery, instructor in English, 1981-82; Mount Senario College, Ladysmith, WI, instructor in English, 1984-86; University of Tennessee, Knoxville, instructor in English, 1986-89; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, assistant professor, 1989-91, associate professor, 1991-95, professor of English, 1995—, associate dean of College of Arts and Sciences, 2000-2004.

MEMBER:

American Theater and Drama Society (president, 2002).

WRITINGS:

Beyond Naturalism: A New Realism in the American Theatre, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1988.

Clifford Odets: A Research and Production Source-book, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1991.

Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, into Orderly Disorder, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Staging Consciousness: Theater and the Materialization of Mind, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2002.

EDITOR

American Playwrights, 1880-1945: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1994.

British Playwrights, 1956-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1996.

(With Katherine E. Kelly) British Playwrights, 1880-1956: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1996.

Realism and the American Dramatic Tradition, University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), 1996.

(With Bernice Schrank) Irish Playwrights, 1880-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1997.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Comedy and Chaos, publication expected in 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

William W. Demastes told CA: "My work is generally scholarly in nature, concentrating on contemporary American and British theater and drama. My approach is typically interdisciplinary, including such philosophers as Lucretius and Descartes, but also landscape architecture and painting, and especially contemporary sciences such as chaos theory, quantum mechanics, theories of consciousness. Finding points of intersection between these fields and contemporary theater is a primary motivation behind my writing, working to uncover a general commonality of thought in contemporary culture throughout various forms of creative expression—especially between the arts and the sciences. My contention is that there is ultimately very little difference in thought and in conclusions between and among disciplines variously subdivided into the arts and sciences."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Comparative Drama, fall, 2000, Jeffrey D. Hoeper, review of Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, into Orderly Disorder, p. 359; spring, 2003, Gene A. Plunka, review of Staging Consciousness: Theater and the Materialization of Mind, p. 129.