About the Book
Shortlisted for the 2021 TaPRA Edited Collection Prize
The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography is an authoritative guide to contemporary debates and practices in this field. The book covers the key themes and methods that are current in theatre history research, with a particular focus on expanding the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world. Central to the book are eighteen specially commissioned essays by established and emerging scholars from a wide range of international contexts, whose discussion of individual case studies is predicated on their understanding and experience of their ‘local’ landscape of theatre history. These essays reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, draws on academic contexts beyond the Western academy to expand our knowledge of the exciting directions that such an approach opens up. Prefaced by an introduction tracing the development of the discipline of theatre history and changing historiographical approaches, the Handbook explores current issues pertaining to theatre and performance history research, as well as providing up to date and robust introductions to the methods and historiographic questions being explored by researchers in the field.
Featuring a series of essential research tools, including a detailed list of resources and an annotated bibliography of key texts, this is an indispensable scholarly handbook for anyone working in theatre and performance history and historiography.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
How to use this book
Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
1. Introduction
Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
2. Research Methods and Methodologies
Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3. Current Research: Case Studies from the Field
3.1 Seeing Differently Through Time and Space
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.1.1 A-foot in Time: Temporality in the Space of a Moment in Theatre History
Rosemarie Bank (Kent State University, USA)
3.1.2 Nuwhju and the Archive: Recuperating the History of Aboriginal Australian Performance Practice
Maryrose Casey (Monash University, Australia)
3.2 Challenging Dominant Histories
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.2.1 Theatre History vs Theatre Canon: the Chilean Case
Milena Grass Kleiner (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, USA), Mariana Hausdorf Andrade (Independent Scholar), Nancy Nicholls (Universidad Católica de Chile, USA)
3.2.2 When Napoleon went to the Theatre: A Closer Examination of Stories and the History of the Milanese Patriotic Scene
Laura Peja (Università Cattolica, Italy)
3.3 Politics, Precursors and Erasure
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.3.1 How to Make Political Theatre? Polish Socialist Realism as a Historiographical Problem
Dorota Sosnowska (Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland)
3.3.2 The First Actress Party:Adunni Oluwole and the First Guerrilla Theatre in Nigeria
Ngozi Udengwu (University of Nigeria, Nigeria)
3.4 Mapping Landscapes of Theatre
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.4.1 Mapping London’s Amateur Theatre Histories
David Coates (University of Warwick, UK)
3.4.2 Between Back Province and Metropolis. Actor Autobiographies as Sources to Trace Cultural Mobility
Katharina Wessely (University of Vienna, Austria)
3.5 Place and the Performance Event
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.5.1. History vs Historiography. A Renaissance Case Study Revisited
Clelia Falletti (University of Rome, Italy), trans. by Victor Emmanuel Jacono
3.5.2 Of Shrine and Stage: A Study of Huizhou Temple Theatre in Late Imperial China
Xiaohuan Zhao (Shanxi Normal University & Donghua University, Shanghai, China)
3.6 Material Evidence and the Archive
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.6.1 Historiography of Yellowface: Stage Makeup, Materiality and Technology
Esther Kim Lee (Duke University, USA)
3.6.2 Archived Voices: Attempting to Listen to the Theatrical Past
Ruthie Abeliovich (University of Haifa, Israel)
3.7 The Imperatives of Local Difference
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.7.1 What’s in a Name? The Performance of Language in the Invention of Colonial and Postcolonial South Asian Theatre History
Rashna Darius Nicholson (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
3.7.2 Korean Masked Dance Drama and a Historiography of Emotions
Hyunshik Ju (Kyonggi University, South Korea)
3.8 Rhizomes and Palimpsests: Theatre Histories Across Cultures
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
3.8.1 Erased Trails: Investigating Icelandic-Canadian Theatre History
Magnus Thor Thorbergsson (University of Iceland, Iceland)
3.8.2 Decolonizing Theatre History in the Arab World (The Case of the Maghreb)
Khalid Amine (Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tétouan, Morocco)
4. Changing Perspectives and Current Challenges
Introduction: Claire Cochrane (University of Worcester, UK) and Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
4.1 A Manifesto for Performance Research
Elisabeth Dutton (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
4.2 Digital Histories, Digital Landscapes: New Possibilities of Arranging the Record
Jo Robinson (University of Nottingham, UK)
4.3 Historians in Dialogue: a Roundtable Discussion
5.1. Works Cited
5.2 Annotated Bibliography
5.3 Selected Resources
Index
