Drama Department marks the publication of four books

December 2009

The Drama Department of Trinity College has marked the recent publication of four books on theatre and performance, all written or edited by staff members. Details are as follows:

Crossroads: Performance Studies and Irish Culture
edited by Sara Brady and Fintan Walsh
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
It is increasingly well recognized that the categories of 'Irish culture' and 'Irishness' are highly performative, effected through a wide range of social practices, cultural formations, and discursive utterances, and in timely need of critical address. The purpose of this seminal collection of essays is to broach this task by considering Irish culture through some of the paradigms and vocabularies offered by performance studies.

The Dreaming Body: Contemporary Irish Theatre
edited by Melissa Sihra and Paul Murphy
Colin Smythe Ltd & Oxford University Press, New York, 2009
 This book is a celebration of the vitality, originality and richness of theatre practice and scholarship on the island today.  In writings by Marina Carr, Seamus Heaney, Olwen Fouere, Terry Eagleton, Paul Murphy, Aoife Monks, Melissa Sihra, Conall Morrison, Mark Phelan, Eamonn Jordan, Brian Singleton, Lynne Parker, Rhona Trench, Stephen Regan, David Johnston and Donal O'Kelly we see examples of creative writing which engage critically with a world that is constantly changing, and examples of critical writing which engage creatively with theatre that is constantly evolving.
 
Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture: from Simulation to Embeddedness
by Matthew Causey
Routledge, 2009
 This book examines the recent history of advanced technologies, including new media, virtual environments, weapons systems and medical innovation, and considers how theatre, performance and culture at large have evolved within those systems.  It considers the two Iraq wars, 9/11 and the War on Terror through the lens of performance studies, and, drawing on the writings of Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and Martin Heidegger, alongside the dramas of Beckett, Genet and Shakespeare, and the theatre of the Kantor, Foreman, Socetas Raffaello Sanzio and the Wooster Group, the book positions theatre and performance in technoculture and articulates the processes of aesthetics, metaphysics and politics.
 
Native American Performance and Representation
edited by S E Wilmer
University of Arizona Press, 2009
Native performance is a multi-faceted and changing art form as well as a swiftly growing field of research.  This volume examines Native performance using a variety of lenses, such as feminism, literary and film theory and post-colonial discourse.  Through the many unique voices of its contributors major themes are explored such as indigenous self-representation in performance representations by non-indigenous people, cultural authenticity in performance and representation and cross-fertilisation between cultures.