Abstract:
The impact of digital phenomena—such as social media, fake news, or deepfakes—on democracies has become a growing concern. Jennifer Haley’s “tech plays” explore these concerns by depicting fictional worlds in which corporate structures replaced democratic ones, and digital innovations disrupt social relations. In this presentation, I focus on Haley’s play Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom (N3RD) (2008/2009) which portrays an American suburban community divided by a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) popular among teenagers. I argue that the primary dystopian theme is the impact of deregulated corporate control over digital spaces on social and political life. Through its themes and aesthetics, Haley’s play suggests that digital realms are not separate from physical reality but extensions thereof. The possibility of disembodiment in virtual spaces is critiqued as a myth that has enabled corporate domination and the abscence of democratic regulation in digital realms.
Bio:
Johanna Hartmann is assistant professor of American Literature at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. In her research, she focuses on American drama and theater since the nineteenth century, questions of (inter-)mediality (for example, painting, photography, film), and contemporary literature. She is the author of Literary Visuality in Siri Hustvedt’s Works: Phenomenological Perspectives (2015). In her habilitation project, she focused on modernist American short plays and theater photography. She is the editor of Censorship and Exile (together with Hubert Zapf, 2015), Zones of Ambiguity in Siri Hustvedt’s Works: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (together with Christine Marks and Hubert Zapf, 2016), The Tragic in Contemporary American Drama and Theater (together with Julia Rössler, special issue of Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 2019), Theater and Community: Poetics, Politics, Performances (together with Ilka Saal, special issue of Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 2024), and The Body in/of Don DeLillo’s Plays (special issue of Texas Studies in Literature and Language, forthcoming 2025).