Theatre & Performance Studies News
In Memoriam - Professor Jim Davis
It is with a very heavy heart that we write to let you know that Professor Jim Davis passed away on Saturday 4th November following a stroke. Everyone who had the pleasure of encountering Jim will appreciate that this is a huge loss for his family, friends, colleagues, collaborators and the wider research community. He was a fantastic scholar and unwavering champion for the discipline and theatre historiography. He was such an important part of the Theatre and Performance family at the University of Warwick and will be missed for his leadership, mentorship, friendship and unfailing sense of fun and mischief.
Jim Davis joined Warwick in 2004 as Head of Department (2004-2009) after eighteen years teaching Theatre Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he was latterly Head of the School of Theatre, Film and Dance. In Australia he was also President of the Australasian Drama Studies Association and member of the Board of Studies of the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Prior to leaving for Australia he spent ten years teaching in London at what is now Roehampton University. He co-organised many conferences including for the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) in New South Wales and at Warwick. He convened Historiography Working Groups for both IFTR and for TaPRA. He served as an editor for the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film.
He published widely and with considerable critical acclaim in the area of nineteenth-century British theatre. His most recent bookComic Acting and Portraiture in Late-Georgian and Regency England (2015) won the TaPRA David Bradby Prize for Research in International Theatre and Performance in 2017 and was shortlisted for the 2015 TLA George Freedley Memorial Award. His other publications include Theatre & Entertainment (2016), Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens Volume II (2017) and European Theatre Performance Practice Vol 3 1750-1900 (editor, 2014). He was also joint author of a study of London theatre audiences in the nineteenth century Reflecting the Audience: London 1840-1880 (2001), which was awarded the 2001 Theatre Book Prize. He contributed numerous chapters including essays on nineteenth-century acting to the Cambridge History of British Theatre and on audiences to the Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre. He also published many articles in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Theatre Notebook, Essays in Theatre, Themes in Drama, New Theatre Quarterly, Nineteenth Century Theatre, Theatre Research International and The Dickensian. He was also responsible for many of the theatrical entries in The Oxford Readers' Companion to Dickens and contributed to the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Stage Actors and Acting and the New Dictionary of National Biography. For several years he wrote an annual review of publications on nineteenth-century English Drama and Theatre for The Year's Work in English Studies.
An event to celebrate Jim’s life and work was held on 6 January 2024 12pm-4pm in the Studios in the Faculty of Arts Building on the University of Warwick's campus.
Wallace McDowell's Retirement
After 17 years connected to the department, we're saying goodbye to Wallace McDowell this summer. Students and staff are very sad to see him go. Wallace has given a huge amount to Theatre and Performance Studies over the years and has inspired and supported generations of students. All of us wish him all the very best for the next adventure in retirement!
Wallace has written the following:
"It was 17 years ago that I, as a 25-year veteran practitioner in the professional theatre industry, arrived to start my Ph.D at Warwick under the supervision of Nadine Holdsworth. I had assumed that I would pursue a lonely research furrow for 3-4 years to complete my project. Instead, the academic equivalent of a CS Lewis wardrobe gave me access to a world that I did not know existed: an unbelievably collegiate department under the then leadership of Jim Davis; a vibrant research community of fellow Ph.D students; opportunities to go to conferences – Helsinki, Stellenbosch, Barcelona; and, above all the opportunity to teach which was not something I had even thought about when I started.
I discovered it was what I loved doing and got the opportunity to develop my own teaching areas – 20th Century Irish Theatre, and Performing masculinities. This served as the basis for my teaching and convening of work when I became a full member of the department. In doing so I met cohort after cohort of talented and bright students who had a huge impact on my life. You know who you are. That is what has made the last 17 years so worthwhile.
I am sorry to be leaving but sometimes the time is just right. In so many ways, academic life is another planet from 2004. In some ways, however, many fundamental values remain – and they continue to remain in the TPS department of 2021 led by Anna Harpin.
Over the years, the work and subsequent lives of students have been life affirming and I know that this will continue. This is something that gives me immense pleasure
For me, let us see what happens. I take great comfort in the words of Homer – Simpson that is – ‘I have enough money now to last me for the rest of my life – as long as I die by next Tuesday'.
Farewell and keep the faith. Fly strong and fly high
Wallace"