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.
Dr Anna Harpin presents "Something and Nothing: Moods of Madness" at the University of Bristol
Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances Colloquium hosted at Warwick
Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances
Colloquium June 5th and 6th
(Supported by British Academy and Connecting Cultures GRP
On the anniversary of the October Revolution, questions of the Left have been re-emerging as timely and urgent. This colloquium explores how to live and do Leftist politics in response to injustices of our own time.
After workshops at Warwick (UK) and JNU (India) earlier this year, British Academy Partnership project Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances gathers again for a series of talks and discussions, asking: How can the cultural and ethical legacy of the Left inspire political resistance under neoliberalism? How does cultural Left imagine and perform new ways of doing Left politics to integrate a range of issues (i.e. immigration, nationalism, gender, etc.)? Can performances and manifestations of the cultural Left be explored as means of rethinking the structure of Leftist political organisation and mobilisation in a global context?
Keynotes:
Dr Ameet Parasvaram (JNU) & Dr Igor Štiks (University of Edinburgh):
Speakers:
Prof. Elaine Aston (Theatre, Lancaster University)
Prof. Samik Bandyopadhyay (Theatre, JNU)
Dr Anna Hájková (History, Warwick)
Dr Brahm Prakash (Theatre and Performance, JNU)
Prof. Andy Lavender (Theatre & Performance Studies, Warwick)
Prof. Janelle Reinelt (Theatre & Performance Studies, Warwick)
Prof. Anupama Roy (Centre for Political Studies, JNU)
Dr Mallarika Sinha Roy (Women Studies, JNU)
Dr Illan Rua Wall (Law, Warwick)
Contact: s.jestrovic@warwick.ac.uk
Prof. Jim Davis speaks about 'Irish' Johnstone at Trinity College, Dublin
Jim Davis has just delivered a paper entitled ‘An Irishman in London: ‘Irish’ Johnstone’s representation of Irishness on the London Stage 1782-1820’ at a conference at Trinity College, Dublin on ‘The Irish on the London Stage: Identity, Culture, Politics’.
Also, on 2 February he contributed a talk on ‘Some Aspects of Anglo-Australian Cultural Exchange 1880-1960’ for the London Theatre Seminar at Senate House, University of London.
Dr. Michael Pigott speaks on 'Cities on Film' at Oxford University
On Thurs 2nd February, Dr. Michael Pigott spoke as part of the 'Cities on Film' series of events at Oxford University. Michael chose the films Dredd (Travis, 2012) and Side/Walk/Shuttle (Gehr, 1993) to be shown as part of the series and the screening was followed by a discussion between Michael and Dr. Peter Wynn-Kirby, who is an environmental specialist, ethnographer, and Research Fellow in the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford.
Organised by the Oxford Forum and Stanford University Centre in Oxford
For more information about the event click here
"Films about cities are both part of modern urban experience and a mode of our reflecting on that experience. Over the last century both cinema and cities have been in flux. What have we learned from films that explore cities? About cities? About films? About tradition? About modernity? About fantasy? About reality? About beauty? About ugliness? About living? About ourselves? About making sense or nonsense of any or all of these? In this series of Film events, the Oxford Forum and Stanford University Centre in Oxford are showing entrancing films about cities, followed by dialogues and discussion."