Advertisement

From Drama to Theatre to Performance Studies

  • Glenn D’Cruz
Chapter
First Online:

Abstract

This chapter deals with the institutional and discursive relationships between postdramatic theatre and performance studies by drawing on the work of scholars such as Richard Schechner, Shannon Jackson and Jon McKenzie. It contends that performance studies not only establishes a condition of possibility for Lehmann’s work in the academy but also provides an eclectic set of methodological tools and theoretical perspectives that enable a richer understanding of the political efficacy of postdramatic theatre. After providing a brief account of the genealogy of performance studies, by engaging with the work of Shannon Jackson, among others, I use Jon McKenzie’s seminal work Perform—Or Else? (2001) to help me identify the institutional performance imperatives and pressures that enable and constrain teaching practices within universities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Barish, Jonas. 1985. The Anti-Theatrical Prejudice. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  2. Bharucha, Rustom. 1993. Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  3. Brennan, Teresa. 2004. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
  4. Brockett, Oscar G., and Robert Findlay. 1991. Century of Innovation: A History of European and American Theatre and Drama Since the Late Nineteenth Century. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
  5. Burrell, Andrew. 2016. UWA Head Paul Johnson Quits After Rows with Staff, Students. The Australian, September 6. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/uwa-head-paul-johnson-quits-after-rows-with-staff-students/news-story/865d7e454678b528f0353985d2398158
  6. Carlson, Marvin. 1996. Performance: A Critical Introduction. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  7. Cooper Albright, Ann. 2013. Engaging Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
  8. D’Cruz, Glenn. 1995. From Theatre to Performance: Constituting the Discipline of Performance Studies in the Australian Academy. Australasian Drama Studies 26: 36–52.Google Scholar
  9. Debord, Guy. 1995 (1967). The Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
  11. Farrier, Stephen. 2005. Approaching Performance Though Praxis. Studies in Theatre and Performance 25 (2): 129–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Foucault, Michel. 1981. The Order of Discourse. In Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, ed. Robert Young and trans. Ian McLeod, 51–76. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
  13. Fuchs, Elinor. 2008. Postdramatic Theatre (Review). TDR: The Drama Review 52 (2 (T198)): 178–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Gibbs, Anna. 2001. Contagious Feelings: Pauline Hanson and the Epidemiology of Affect. Australian Humanities Review, December. http://australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-December-2001/gibbs.html#footnote1
  15. Hamilton, Margaret. 2008. Postdramatic Theatre and Australia: A ‘New’ Theatre Discourse. Australasian Drama Studies 52: 3–23.Google Scholar
  16. Handke, Peter. 1971. Offending the Audience. Translated by Michael Roloff. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
  17. Harding, James, and Cindy Rosenthal, eds. 2011. The Rise of Performance Studies: Rethinking Richard Schechner’s Broad Spectrum. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
  18. Jackson, Shannon. 2004. Professing Performance: Theatre in the Academy from Philology to Performativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. James Cook University. 2014. Organisational Restructure. https://www.jcu.edu.au/jcu-the-future/organisational-restructure
  20. Lavoipierre, Angela. 2016. University of Sydney’s Governing Body Accused of Making Major Changes at ‘Secret Meeting’. ABC News, January 23. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-23/sydney-university-senate-accused-of-making-changes-in-secret/7109024
  21. Lehmann, Hans-Thies. 2006. Postdramatic Theatre. Translated and with an introduction by Karen Jürs-Munby. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  22. ———. 2008. Lehmann Responds. TDR: The Drama Review 52 (4 (T200)): 13–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Manovich, Lev. 2013. Software Takes Command. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
  24. Marginson, Simon, and Mark Considine. 2000. The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  25. McGowan, Michael. 2017. University of Newcastle Staff Fear ‘Massive Job Losses’ After Review, Union Warns. Herald, November 17, 2016. http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4300821/massive-job-losses-feared-for-university-staff
  26. McKenzie, Jon. 2001. Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Newfield, Christopher. 2011. Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class. Boston: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  28. Oracle. 2017. A Brighter Future for Every Student. https://www.oracle.com/industries/higher-education/index.html
  29. Pavis, Patrice. 1982. Languages of the Stage: Essays in the Semiology of Theatre. New York: PAJ Publications.Google Scholar
  30. Phelan, Peggy. 1998. Introduction: The Ends of Performance. In The Ends of Performance, ed. Peggy Phelan and Jill Lane, 1–22. London and New York: University of New York Press.Google Scholar
  31. Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Roth, Michael S. 2014. Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
  33. Schechner, Richard. 1988. Performance Theory. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  34. ———. 2002. Fundamentals of Performance Studies. In Teaching Performance Studies, ed. Nathan Stucky and Cynthia Wimmer, ix–xii. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
  35. ———. 2013. Performance Studies: An Introduction. 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  36. Simmons, Dana. 2016. Impostor Syndrome, a Reparative History. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2: 106–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Stucky, Nathan, and Cynthia Wimmer, eds. 2002. Teaching Performance Studies. Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale.Google Scholar
  38. Wangh, Stephen. 2013. The Heart of Teaching. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  39. Zakaria, Fareed. 2015. In Defense of a Liberal Education. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Glenn D’Cruz
    • 1
  1. 1.School of Communication & Creative ArtDeakin UniversityBurwoodAustralia

Personalised recommendations

Cite chapter

Buy options