J. Coplen Rose

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J. Coplen Rose

J. Coplen Rose

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Biography

Acadia University - English

Department of English and Theatre, Acadia University
Higher Education
J. Coplen
Rose, Ph.D.
Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
Dr. J. Coplen Rose currently works in the Department of English and Theatre at Acadia University. He recently completed his Ph.D. in English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University under the guidance of Dr. Mariam Pirbhai. Coplen’s dissertation, titled “National Crises and Moments of Laughter in ‘Second Interregnum’ South African Drama, 2001-2014,” analyzes political criticism and humour in eight plays produced after Nelson Mandela’s retirement. This project was completed through international fieldwork in 2012 and 2013 and was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His other research interests include postcolonial studies, geography and digital mapping, trauma studies, and memory. In addition to his degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, Coplen holds a Master of Arts from Lakehead University and a Bachelor of Arts from Bishop’s University.

Experience

  • Lakehead University

    Contract Lecturer

    J. Coplen worked at Lakehead University as a Contract Lecturer

  • Wilfrid Laurier University

    Contract Lecturer

    J. Coplen worked at Wilfrid Laurier University as a Contract Lecturer

  • Statistics Canada

    Census Crew Leader

    J. Coplen worked at Statistics Canada as a Census Crew Leader

  • Acadia University

    Assistant Professor

    J. Coplen worked at Acadia University as a Assistant Professor

  • Elections Canada

    Central Poll Supervisor

    J. Coplen worked at Elections Canada as a Central Poll Supervisor

  • University of Toronto

    Participant in the Humour, Seriously 2015-2016 Jackman Humanities Institute working group.

Education

  • Lakehead University

    Master’s Degree

    English Literature and Postcolonial Theory
    Title of Research Project: "Privileging a Western Aesthetic: Al Purdy’s rewriting of Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona’s 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead'"

  • Lakehead University

    Contract Lecturer



  • Ryerson University

    Part-Time Studies

    Geograhic Information Systems
    Attended the Chang School to complete studies in Geography and GIS.

  • Wilfrid Laurier University

    Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

    English and Film Studies
    “National Crises and Moments of Laughter in ‘Second Interregnum’ South African Drama, 2001-2014” My dissertation analyzes Anglophone South African drama and its critique of national crises in the post-apartheid moment. Focusing specifically on the years after Nelson Mandela’s retirement, my project examines eight prominent plays produced between 2001 and 2014. This study is divided into four research chapters that highlight major challenges curtailing reconciliation and nation-building during this time: continuing class inequality, silence around mothers’ experiences of trauma during apartheid, ethnic minorities’ feelings of exclusion from national narratives, and continuing cycles of physical and psychological violence. Studying instances of humour and criticism, my work argues playwrights used drama to encourage social change through debate and dialogue.

  • Recipient of the 2013/2014 Dr. W. J. Villaume Scholarship


    Given in acknowledgment for outstanding academic achievement and involvement in international research.

  • Wilfrid Laurier University

    Contract Lecturer



Publications

  • Film Reviews: Disgrace, Tsotsi, and Cinderella of the Cape Flats

    University of Chicago Press

  • Film Reviews: Disgrace, Tsotsi, and Cinderella of the Cape Flats

    University of Chicago Press

  • Rethinking Motherhood beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Anger and Healing in Fatima Dike’s The Return

    The International Journal of Diverse Identities

    Published in 2009, Fatima Dike’s “The Return” foregrounds ongoing challenges concerning reconciliation and healing in post-apartheid South Africa. Analyzing this play as a work of post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission drama, this article argues the mother in the play is a response to the gendered silencing that occurred throughout many of the testimonials presented by mothers at the Truth Commission. Lacking many of the stereotypical characteristics associated with victimhood, she openly details the traumatic experiences from her past and the anger they caused. Her responses to the various crises in the plot make this play a salient commentary on current challenges facing many indigenous South African families. As the play suggests, rethinking constructions of motherhood and national narratives around grief and suffering offer new routes for healing and forgiveness beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  • Film Reviews: Disgrace, Tsotsi, and Cinderella of the Cape Flats

    University of Chicago Press

  • Rethinking Motherhood beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Anger and Healing in Fatima Dike’s The Return

    The International Journal of Diverse Identities

    Published in 2009, Fatima Dike’s “The Return” foregrounds ongoing challenges concerning reconciliation and healing in post-apartheid South Africa. Analyzing this play as a work of post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission drama, this article argues the mother in the play is a response to the gendered silencing that occurred throughout many of the testimonials presented by mothers at the Truth Commission. Lacking many of the stereotypical characteristics associated with victimhood, she openly details the traumatic experiences from her past and the anger they caused. Her responses to the various crises in the plot make this play a salient commentary on current challenges facing many indigenous South African families. As the play suggests, rethinking constructions of motherhood and national narratives around grief and suffering offer new routes for healing and forgiveness beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  • Acting Out of Discontent : Satire, Shakespeare, and South African Politics in Pieter-Dirk Uys’s MacBeki: A Farce to be Reckoned With and The Merry Wives of Zuma

    Shakespeare en devenir

    This article analyzes South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys’s rewriting of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Exploring the social and political critiques contained in MacBeki and The Merry Wives of Zuma, this article argues both plays should be read as postcolonial appropriations of Shakespeare – works that alter the original plays’ language and themes for new, local purposes. Uys’s works target the legacy of colonization in South Africa by deriding neocolonial abuses and the characters who continue to revere colonial systems of power and control. In doing so, his deployment of Shakespeare eschews reaffirming the kind of European cultural hierarchy that the British playwright is often associated with in decolonizing states. In this fashion, Shakespeare’s plays are decolonized by mocking their historic elevation, while at the same time being redeployed to critique national crises such as corruption and continuing economic disparity. However, while these two plays illustrate Shakespeare’s usefulness in critiquing national crises, they also reveal the precariousness of using satire for such purposes in the quickly-shifting political landscape of contemporary South Africa. This article concludes by questioning whether Uys’s two satires were outdone by the events he was attempting to critique.

  • Film Reviews: Disgrace, Tsotsi, and Cinderella of the Cape Flats

    University of Chicago Press

  • Rethinking Motherhood beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Anger and Healing in Fatima Dike’s The Return

    The International Journal of Diverse Identities

    Published in 2009, Fatima Dike’s “The Return” foregrounds ongoing challenges concerning reconciliation and healing in post-apartheid South Africa. Analyzing this play as a work of post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission drama, this article argues the mother in the play is a response to the gendered silencing that occurred throughout many of the testimonials presented by mothers at the Truth Commission. Lacking many of the stereotypical characteristics associated with victimhood, she openly details the traumatic experiences from her past and the anger they caused. Her responses to the various crises in the plot make this play a salient commentary on current challenges facing many indigenous South African families. As the play suggests, rethinking constructions of motherhood and national narratives around grief and suffering offer new routes for healing and forgiveness beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  • Acting Out of Discontent : Satire, Shakespeare, and South African Politics in Pieter-Dirk Uys’s MacBeki: A Farce to be Reckoned With and The Merry Wives of Zuma

    Shakespeare en devenir

    This article analyzes South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys’s rewriting of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Exploring the social and political critiques contained in MacBeki and The Merry Wives of Zuma, this article argues both plays should be read as postcolonial appropriations of Shakespeare – works that alter the original plays’ language and themes for new, local purposes. Uys’s works target the legacy of colonization in South Africa by deriding neocolonial abuses and the characters who continue to revere colonial systems of power and control. In doing so, his deployment of Shakespeare eschews reaffirming the kind of European cultural hierarchy that the British playwright is often associated with in decolonizing states. In this fashion, Shakespeare’s plays are decolonized by mocking their historic elevation, while at the same time being redeployed to critique national crises such as corruption and continuing economic disparity. However, while these two plays illustrate Shakespeare’s usefulness in critiquing national crises, they also reveal the precariousness of using satire for such purposes in the quickly-shifting political landscape of contemporary South Africa. This article concludes by questioning whether Uys’s two satires were outdone by the events he was attempting to critique.

  • Class Movements in the New South Africa: PostColonial Politics, Neocolonialism, and Mimicry in Pieter-Dirk Uys ’s MacBeki A Farce to be Reckoned With

    Scholarship@Western

  • Film Reviews: Disgrace, Tsotsi, and Cinderella of the Cape Flats

    University of Chicago Press

  • Rethinking Motherhood beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Anger and Healing in Fatima Dike’s The Return

    The International Journal of Diverse Identities

    Published in 2009, Fatima Dike’s “The Return” foregrounds ongoing challenges concerning reconciliation and healing in post-apartheid South Africa. Analyzing this play as a work of post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission drama, this article argues the mother in the play is a response to the gendered silencing that occurred throughout many of the testimonials presented by mothers at the Truth Commission. Lacking many of the stereotypical characteristics associated with victimhood, she openly details the traumatic experiences from her past and the anger they caused. Her responses to the various crises in the plot make this play a salient commentary on current challenges facing many indigenous South African families. As the play suggests, rethinking constructions of motherhood and national narratives around grief and suffering offer new routes for healing and forgiveness beyond South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  • Acting Out of Discontent : Satire, Shakespeare, and South African Politics in Pieter-Dirk Uys’s MacBeki: A Farce to be Reckoned With and The Merry Wives of Zuma

    Shakespeare en devenir

    This article analyzes South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys’s rewriting of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Exploring the social and political critiques contained in MacBeki and The Merry Wives of Zuma, this article argues both plays should be read as postcolonial appropriations of Shakespeare – works that alter the original plays’ language and themes for new, local purposes. Uys’s works target the legacy of colonization in South Africa by deriding neocolonial abuses and the characters who continue to revere colonial systems of power and control. In doing so, his deployment of Shakespeare eschews reaffirming the kind of European cultural hierarchy that the British playwright is often associated with in decolonizing states. In this fashion, Shakespeare’s plays are decolonized by mocking their historic elevation, while at the same time being redeployed to critique national crises such as corruption and continuing economic disparity. However, while these two plays illustrate Shakespeare’s usefulness in critiquing national crises, they also reveal the precariousness of using satire for such purposes in the quickly-shifting political landscape of contemporary South Africa. This article concludes by questioning whether Uys’s two satires were outdone by the events he was attempting to critique.

  • Class Movements in the New South Africa: PostColonial Politics, Neocolonialism, and Mimicry in Pieter-Dirk Uys ’s MacBeki A Farce to be Reckoned With

    Scholarship@Western

Positions

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

  • Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

    Regular Member

  • African Literature Association

    Former Chair of the Graduate Student Caucus

ENG 1413

5(1)

  • Level:
  • Credit hours: 0

ENGL 1423

3.3(3)

  • Level:
  • Credit hours: 0

ENGL 1413

3(1)

  • Level:
  • Credit hours: 0

ENGL 1406

4(1)

  • Level:
  • Credit hours: 0
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