Research Student Research Area: Theatre Festivals and Cultural Diplomacy Supervisor: Milija Gluhovic Co-Supervisor: Regine Perron (University of Cergy-Pontoise, France) Email: alice.golisano@warwick.ac.uk

My academic path started with a BA in interlinguistic mediation in Genova, Italy, including a six-month-long Erasmus in the UK, which lead me to an MA in Theatre and Performance Research. During the master, I was given the opportunity to explore the thematics that I am now developing with my current research.

Theatre has always been part of my life, I’ve studied acting for a long time, and even auditioned for academies, in Italy. I did not get in, but I switched my perspective: If I were not to make theatre, I would look at it from another perspective.

 

My aim is to look at European international theatre festivals as cultural mediators, seeing these events as liminal spaces of symbolic dialogue between European and national identities, and advocates for European solidarity in times of crisis.

I was awarded the EUTOPIA Scholarship, which gave me the unique chance of enrolling as a PhD student both at Warwick and at the French university of Cergy-Pontoise as part of the history department, where I’ll spend at least a year doing research. This will allow me to carry out my research not only across different departments and disciplines, but countries as well, which I believe will be of key importance, given that I will look into what part my case studies play in building a European cultural identity, inside and outside the EU.