David John McDonald Jr. (July 1, 1939 – October 29, 2017) was an American literary critic who was Professor of Drama at

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

. He received his B.A. from the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, his M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama, and his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He retired from UC-Irvine's faculty in 2004, when he was named professor emeritus.

Biography

McDonald was born in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, to

David J. McDonald David John McDonald (November 22, 1902 – August 8, 1979) was an American labor leader and president of the United Steelworkers of America from 1952 to 1965. Early life McDonald was born in 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to David and Mary ( ...

, the secretary treasurer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and future president of the

United Steelworkers of America The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headqua ...

and Emily Price. He was married to Maura McDonald and they had two sons,

Sean McDonald Sean McDonald is executive editor and vice president of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and publisher of its experimental imprint, MCD/FSG. Career Authors he has edited include Sloane Crosley, Junot Díaz, Nuruddin Farah, James Frey, Gorillaz, Nicola ...

and Charles McDonald. David J. McDonald Jr. died on October 29, 2017, at the age of 78.

Career

McDonald began his career in the Department of Drama at UC Irvine in 1973, and was noted for his work bringing

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

's theory of Deconstruction to the study of drama in the United States. He was an early collaborator with the "School of Criticism and Theory", most notably with

Murray Krieger Murray Krieger (November 27, 1923 – August 5, 2000) was an American literary critic and theorist. He was a professor at the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa from 1963, and then the University of California, Irvine. In 1999, t ...

, founded at UC Irvine in 1976 and now at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he directed and performed in numerous plays with the university's Fine Arts Workshop. He was also instrumental in bringing celebrated visiting scholars to UC Irvine, including

Jerzy Grotowski Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rzesz ...

, and Robert Weimann. In the early 1980s he served as editor of '' Theatre Journal''. In 1987 he was appointed Founding Director of

UCHRI The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), is a humanities research institute at the University of California headquartered at the UC Irvine campus. It promotes collaboration and interdisciplinarity through supporting work ...

, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, where he also served as a fellow from 1988-1989. In the 1990s he drove the establishment of the UC Irvine Department of Drama's and UC San Diego's Department of Theatre's Joint Doctoral Program in Drama and Theatre, which was inaugurated in 2000. McDonald delivered papers all over the world, and was noted for his work across a variety of fields: Dramatic Theory, Irish Drama, Theatre History, Playwriting. He was also a highly regarded teacher in all those fields.

References

Sources

* Reinelt, Janelle G. and Roach, Joseph R., eds. ''Critical Theory and Performance.'' Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1992.

External links

University of California, Irvine Department of Drama website

UCHRI website

''Theatre Journal'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:McDonald, David J. Jr. 1939 births 2017 deaths American literary critics David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni Stanford University alumni University of California, Irvine faculty University of Notre Dame alumni People from Pittsburgh