Research
This book investigates how the performing arts in higher education nationally contribute to the “high impact practices,” as identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). Using the well-known map of the HIPs for illustrating the centrality of performing arts practices in higher education, the editors and authors of this volume call for increased participation by performing arts programs in general education and campus initiatives, with specific case studies as a guide. Performing arts contribute to the efforts of their institution in delivering a strong liberal arts education that uniquely serves students to meet the careers of the future. This is the first book to explicitly link the performing arts to the HIPs, and will result in the implementation of best practices to better meet the educational needs of students. At stake is the viability of performing arts programs to continue to serve students in their pursuit of a liberal arts education.
Find it at the Palgrave site - Performing Arts as High-Impact Practice
“Boxing and the Variety Theatre: Containment and Constraint" in Sporting Performances: Politics in Play, ed. Shannon Walsh (Routledge, 2020).
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Sporting Performances is the first anthology to tackle sports and physical culture from a performance perspective; it serves as an invitation and provocation for scholarly discourse on the connections between sports and physical culture, and theatre and performance.
Through a series of intriguing case studies that blur the lines between the realms of politics, sports, physical culture, and performance, this book assumes that sporting performances, much like theatre, serve as barometers, mirrors, and refractors of the culture in which they are enmeshed. Some of the topics include nineteenth-century variety show pugilists, athletes on Broadway, sumo wrestlers, rhythmic gymnasts, and Strava enthusiasts. While analyzing sport through the lens of theatre and performance, this anthology reflects on how physical culture and sports contribute to identity formation and the effects of nuanced imprints of physical activity on the mind, soul, and tongue.
"Monstrosity or Medical Miracle: Incubator Baby Sideshows and the Contradictions of the Progressive Era" in Performing the Progressive Era: Immigration, Urban Life, and Nationalism on Stage, eds. Max Schulman and J. Christopher Westgate (U of Iowa Press, 2019).
The American Progressive Era, which spanned from the 1880s to the 1920s, is generally regarded as a dynamic period of political reform and social activism. In Performing the Progressive Era, editors Max Shulman and Chris Westgate bring together top scholars in nineteenth- and twentieth-century theatre studies to examine the burst of diverse performance venues and styles of the time, revealing how they shaped national narratives surrounding immigration and urban life. Contributors analyze performances in urban centers (New York, Chicago, Cleveland) in comedy shows, melodramas, Broadway shows, operas, and others. They pay special attention to performances by and for those outside mainstream society: immigrants, the working-class, and bohemians, to name a few. Showcasing both lesser-known and famous productions, the essayists argue that the explosion of performance helped bring the Progressive Era into being, and defined its legacy in terms of gender, ethnicity, immigration, and even medical ethics.
Other research - see my cv for a list of published work. The following papers are available to read. Click on the title for a pdf.
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“Tourist Performances and Staged Authenticity: Taxonomy and the Cultural Archive” - Popular Entertainments Working Group, International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) Shanghai, China, 2019.
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"Penn and Teller and the Recreation of Heritage Magic" – Popular Entertainments Working Group, International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) Stockholm, Sweden, 2016.
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