Books

Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions

Theater Histori­ography: Critical Interventions

Edited by Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen
2010, University of Michigan Press
Paper, 6 x 9, 312pp.
8 B&W Illustrations
978-0-472-05133-5

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“Redraws ‘theater history’ in fiercely imaginative, inspired, and provocative ways.”
—Harley Erdman, University of Massachusetts

How should theater history be practiced? Some scholars have argued that the emerging discipline of performance studies should replace theater history altogether, while traditional theater historians have sometimes rejected performance studies analyses as unsatisfactorily diffuse and less than rigorous. Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions draws freely on the methods and terminologies of both disciplines, showing that the critical intersection between theater history and performance studies is both desirable and inevitable. The book’s original essays, based on innovative and compelling research by 23 contributors, probe key methodological questions about interdisciplinarity, postcolonialism, the archive, and digital technology.

“A major collection that brings together new voices in the field in provocative ways . . . its range and breadth is impressive, and its usefulness in the classroom undeniable.” 
—Ric Knowles, University of Guelph

“Theater Historiography, Critical Interventions is a brilliant, inspiring, and methodologically indispensable achievement.” 
—Aneta Bialecka, e-Journal fur Wissenschaftliche Rezensionen

“An important collection. The essays on theater history are models of meticulous research engaged through rigorous theorizing and analysis; they often yield striking new insights into subjects we might think we already know well.”
—Rhonda Blair, Southern Methodist University

“In this exciting collection, theater historiography becomes a veritable hotbed in which theater history and performance studies productively, even seamlessly, intertwine. These richly diverse yet cogently edited essays incisively address the dynamic methodological, political, and pedagogical challenges of reading past performances in the present.”
—Kim Marra, University of Iowa