Crossroads: Performance Studies and Irish Culture - by Sara Brady & Fintan Walsh (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The highly performative categories of 'Irish culture' and 'Irishness' are in need of critical address, prompted by recent changes in Irish society, the arts industry and modes of critical inquiry. This book broaches this task by considering Irish expressive culture through some of the paradigms and vocabularies offered by performance studies.

Review Quotes

"This volume of essays forms a rich beginning for the development of Irish performance studies." - Aoife Monks, TDR: The Drama Review

"This book has the energy and excitement of a newly discovered mine of research, that of Irish performance studies. Interdisciplinary and eclectic in scope, the collection analyzes past and contemporary performances of Irish culture. The lens of performance studies presents Irish identities and traditions in the making, at once historically located and continually changing in the light of contemporary interpretations, conditions and urgencies. This collection offers striking juxtapositions and theoretical frameworks which offer new insights into the making of Irish culture - past and present." - Professor Anna McMullan, University of Reading, UK

"This is a groundbreaking collection that brings together some of the most important scholars in the area of Performance Studies in Ireland, and [...] has helped in no small part to galvanise that field and the broader field of Irish Studies. " Anne Muhall, University College Dublin, Ireland

"An engrossing, lively, timely, and important collection. The editors have chosen well - the book enriches our understanding of Ireland across a broad range of cultural activities. The essays exemplify, probe, illuminate, and analyze the very rich performative landscape of Ireland. This book opens up new vistas to scholars of performance studies and Irish studies - and to anyone elsewanting to learn more about the ebullient action of Irish culture." Richard Schechner, New York University, USA

"The evocative metaphor of crossroads provides both a title and a theme for this collection of essays on cultural performances. Exploding the hermetic discipline of Irish studies which has primarily confined itself to post-colonial discourse in the last one hundred years the wide-ranging contributors to this expansive volume apply the logic of performance studies to a variety of cultural and social performances, from parades to political speeches, from pilgrimages to beauty pageants, and, of course, the theatre an important new reader in Irish theatre studies." - Sara Keating, Irish Theatre Magazine

About the Author

MATTHEW CAUSEY is Senior Lecturer and Director of Postgraduate Teaching and Learning in the School of Drama, Film, and Music at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland DAVID CREGAN is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, USA, where he also teaches in the Irish Studies Program EMILY MARK FITZGERALD is Lecturer in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland HOLLY MAPLES is Lecturer in Drama at the University of East Anglia, UK CHARLOTTE MCIVOR is a PhD student in Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA J'AIME MORRISON is a performer and scholar whose work focuses on the intersections between Irish Studies, Performance Studies, and Dance History GABRIELLA CALCHI NOVATI is a PhD candidate in Drama at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland ANNE PULJU conducts research in Irish theatre, performance, and politics, with interests ranging from community performance to the relationship between postcolonialism and modernism in the culture of the Irish Free State E. MOORE QUINN is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the College of Charleston, USA JACK SANTINO has been President of the American Folklore Society (2001-2002) and Editor of the Journal of American Folklore (1996-2000) MATTHEW SPANGLER is Assistant Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at San José State University, USA SCOTT SPENCER is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at New York University, USA BERNADETTE SWEENEY lectures in drama and theatre studies at University College Cork, Ireland CARMEN SZABÓ is Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland ERIC WEITZ is Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland MIKE WILSON is Professor of Drama and Co-Director of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, UK