Theatre and Performance Studies » Theatre and Performance Studies News (tag [Research])

Dr Rashna Nicholson Awarded British Academy 2025-26 Mid-Career Fellowship

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:13:00 GMT

Dr. Rashna Nicholson, Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick, has been selected as a recipient of a 2025-26 British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for her project, "How a Discipline is Born: Performance Studies, the Asian Performing Arts and the Cold War (1955-1995)".

The award, valued at £135,442.69, will fund the first extensive reassessment of the emergence of Performance Studies. It will delineate how the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation-affiliated Asia Society, Japan Society, and JDR 3rd Fund smoothed the way for many moves beyond Western concepts of literature, drama, and the arts, comprising Performance Studies’ ‘broad-spectrum approach’.

Through exemplary case studies of institutional grants and fellowship programs, it will uncover the multi-layered history of how policy makers, experts, academics, and artists benchmarked a transregional consensus on theatre’s role in civil society, thereby assisting the US’ rise to global leadership in the arts.

The British Academy's Mid-Career Fellowships are "designed both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences," according to the Academy's website

French version of the Understanding Homelessness: creative toolkit

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 12:14:43 GMT

Nadine Holdsworth is delighted to announce the launch of the French version of the Understanding Homelessness: creative toolkit that has been developed with La Mie de Pain, the largest organisation supporting those experiencing homelessness and precarious housing in Paris. Many thanks to my collaborators Evane Rocheteau, Sky Herington and Bonny Herington. Can't wait to see how this resource will be used to develop understanding of this complex issue and challenge negative stereotypes.

Historiography as Metonymy, Theatre Research International

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:45:15 GMT

Dr Rashna Nicholson, along with Dr Tancredi Gusman and Dr Dorota Sosnowska have published their special issue entitled 'Historiography as Metonymy' in Theatre Research International. The issue can be accessed here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/theatre-research-international

Slow, Spectacular Labours: Liveness in Contemporary Dance

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 13:44:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce the publication of Bryony White's article 'Slow, Spectacular Labours: Liveness in Contemporary Dance' in Contemporary Theatre Review.

Nadine Holdsworth to receive the High Sheriff Award

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 09:49:00 GMT

Nadine Holdsworth has been awarded the High Sheriff Award in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the community in the West Midlands (Via her Homelessness project).

Commonwealth Scholarship available for MA Applied Theatre: Arts, Action, Change at Warwick

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 15:53:00 GMT

We are delighted to announce that a Commonwealth Shared Scholarship is available for the MA Applied Theatre 2024/25.

This scheme supports a student from the global South to study for this degree at Warwick. In order to be considered, candidates must apply to Warwick and to directly to the Commwealth Shared Scholarships Scheme. The deadline for applications is 14th December 2023 and more information can be found on theCommonwealth Shared Scholarships website.

Candidates will need to check that their qualifications and nationality are eligible for the scheme before applying

Assistant Professor White Wins 2023 TaPRA Early Career Researcher Award

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 13:04:00 GMT

Dr. Bryony White, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at Warwick's Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, has won the 2023 TaPRA Early Career Researcher Award for her article in the Summer issue of the peer-reviewed Art Journal, 'Returning to The Scene of the Crime: Gendered and Racialized Violence in Ana Mendieta's Rape Scene'.

Collaborative Doctoral Award - 'Theatre and the Aristocracy: Passion, Patronage, Power and Politics, 1771-1893'

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 09:23:00 GMT

Dr David Coates has worked with Nicola Allen (Archivist at Woburn Abbey) to set up a Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) with the Bedford Estates. This means that they have secured a funded PhD position to start in October 2024. The project that they will co-supervise will interrogate the complex relationships between theatre and the aristocracy in the long nineteenth century. There is flexibility in the CDA's design, enabling the chosen candidate to find their own area of interest within this broad topic. They're now looking for prospective candidates to apply for the position, and David would be delighted to hear from anyone interested (D.J.Coates@warwick.ac.uk). Full details on the project can be found by clicking on this news story.

New Book, 'Performance, Theatricality and the US Presidency - The Currency of Distrust', By Julia Peetz Published

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 13:22:00 GMT

A new book by Dr. Julia Peetz, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Performance and Politics at the Department for Theatre and Performance Studies, Performance, Theatricality and the US Presidency - The Currency of Distrust, has been published by Edinburgh University Press. At a time when the issue of lying in politics has assumed a new saliency on both sides of the Atlantic, the book proposes a new, interdisciplinary perspective on the contemporary rise of mainstreamed populism by exploring features of populist-style politics through the lens of distrust.

Dr. Peetz argues that, rather than being a flaw or corruption, the potential for political distrust must be understood as an essential feature of representative democracy because representation works through performance. The book explores performance as a constellation of factors: scripts, embodiment, ideas of selfhood, and historical norms and ideals. It draws on key scholarship of political representation, rhetoric, and populism; on theories of performativity, theatricality, and acting; and on interviews the author conducted with political speechwriters spanning presidential administrations and campaigns from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama to demonstrate both that distrust is inherent in representative politics and that in mainstreamed populism distrust becomes a focal point around which the theatre of politics revolves.

Going beyond well-worn and simple theatrical metaphors to describe political action, Julia Peetz’s new book offers a sophisticated – and genuinely interdisciplinary - blend of performance and political analysis. Readers will find compelling new approaches to, and arguments about, crucial factors in political life, from legitimacy and representation to distrust, authenticity and populism. The book’s in-depth engagement with the past and present of US presidential performance is both illuminating and insightful. – Michael Saward, University of Warwick

'On Protest', new double issue of Performance Research edited by Julia Peetz and Andy Lavender, is published

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 16:06:00 GMT

On Protest, a new special double issue of Performance Research edited by Julia Peetz, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Performance and Politics at Warwick TPS alongside former Head of School Andy Lavender, has been published. The issue includes an extended editorial by the two.