Dr. Karen Fricker
Email: frickerk@tcd.ieExtension 00 353 1 896 3204 , The Sutherland Centre, Level 6, Arts Building
Biography
Originally from Los Angeles, I hold a BA and MA in English/Dramatic Texts from Stanford University and a PhD from the School of Drama, Trinity College, Dublin. My PhD thesis was entitled “The Globalisation of Robert Lepage: Québécois Cultural Politics and Contemporary Theatre Practice”. Outside of my academic work, I am a theatre critic and editor, writing and broadcasting for, amongst others, The Guardian, The Irish Times, Variety, and RTÉ. I am one of the the founders of irish theatre magazine, for which I served as editor in chief from 1998-2005.
Title of Research
Eurovision and Belonging
Research Project Summary
My research project, which I am conducting as part of the Global Networks Group of the IIIS, is an analysis of the cultural work accomplished by the Eurovision Song Contest. Eurovision is widely viewed in today's Britain and Ireland as a tacky television pageant, a veritable “monument to drivel and mediocrity” (The Observer, 26 April 1992). It is my contention, however, that Eurovision is a more complex and contradictory phenomenon than it initially seems, and one that can be used to examine and problematise our understandings of Europe and Europeanisation; of the democratisation of contemporary media culture through a move from distinction to participation (Bourdieu); and of identity formation in the age of globalisation (by this I refer to Eurovision fan culture). Eurovision is therefore both a specific cultural event and tradition, and an intercultural network, in which meanings and identities are negotiated and evolved.
Currently, myself and two colleagues – Professor Brian Singleton from Trinity's School of Drama, and Elena Moreo, who holds an M.Phil in Racial and Ethnic Studies from Trinity's Department of Sociology – are conducting a study of Irish Eurovision fandom. Having interviewed over 30 Irish Eurovision fans, we are now using social network theory and other cultural studies approaches to analyse the accumulated data. An essay on our findings will appear in the upcoming volume Performing Global Networks , which I am editing with Dr. Ronit Lentin (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, projected for 2007).
Sources of Funding
IIIS Global Networks Group/HEA
Publications
Irish Theatre: Conditions of Criticism. Co-editor (with Prof. Brian Singleton). Dedicated issue of Modern Drama (University of Toronto Press), 47 (4), March 2005.
“Robert Lepage: PRODUCT OF QUEBEC,” in Staging Nationalism: Essays on Theatre and National Identity, ed. Kiki Gounaridou, McFarland, 2005.
“Tourism, The Festival Marketplace, and Robert Lepage's The Seven Streams of the River Ota,” Contemporary Theatre Review , Vol 14(14), Winter 2004.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, ed. Dennis Kennedy, Oxford 2003. Entries on North American theatre.
“Same old show: The performance of masculinity in Conor McPherson's Port Authority and Mark O'Rowe's Made in China,” in The Irish Review , Autumn 2002 issue, guest ed. Adrian Frazier.
“Travelling Without Moving: True Lines and Contemporary Irish Theatre Practice,” in Druids, Dudes, and Beauty Queens: The Changing Face of Irish Theatre , ed. Dermot Bolger, New Island 2002.
Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, editor, Colin Chambers, Blackwell 2001. Entries on Irish theatres and playwrights.
The Seven Streams of the River Ota. Methuen, 1996. Co-ordinated publication of and wrote introduction and extended stage directions for playscript of production created by Robert Lepage and Ex Machina.