Research seminar series for 2017/18 announced

The focus for this years School of Performance and Cultural Industries research seminar series is the activist and research potential of performance practice.

There will be speakers from the School, academics from across the University of Leeds and two external speakers.

The series of six seminars begins with a presentation by Professor Sita Popat who is giving the talk ‘Prosthetics and Personhood‘ about her Wellcome Trust-funded research on the bodily processes in relation to physical and digital prostheses.

On 7 November highly acclaimed and accomplished performer Dr Marisa Carnesky will share her thoughts on her latest touring show, ‘Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman’, she will also be talking about her practice as approach to her creative work.

The second external guest speaker is Professor Roberta Mock, Professor of Performance Studies at Plymouth University who will be speaking about Woody Allen and Women.

There will also be two panels of academics from the University of Leeds. The first panel is on practice as research and is made up of three speakers from the School, Dr Jenny Lawson, Lecturer in Contemporary Performance, Dr Scott Palmer, Lecturer in Scenography, Dr Kara McKenzie, Lecturer in Dramaturgy and Literary Management. The panel will be chaired by Dr Anna Fenemore, Associate Professor in Contemporary Theatre and Performance.

The second panel focuses on activism and protest and there will be three papers being presented. Dr Ally Walsh, Lecturer in Applied Theatre and Intervention, will be presenting her research on prisons protests, hunger strikes and standing in resistance. Professor Paul Routledge, from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, will be giving a paper entitled ‘Space invaders: power, politics and protest’. He will be discussing the spatial strategies involved in the undertaking of protest, grounding the discussion in ongoing scholar activist work with the landless farmers movement of Bangladesh. We are also hoping to include a paper by Dr Jason Allen, from the School of Modern Languages at the University of Leeds, who is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. His research draws together theatre and law to confront colonial atrocities in Jamaica.

The seminar series will finish with a presentation by Dr Adam Strickson, Teaching Fellow in Theatre and Writing, who will be discussing his work on adapting Ming Dynasty drama in China.