Preliminary analysis of the representation of laborers in Greek tragedy and satyr drama.

Discussion of class structure in fifth-century Athens, historical constitution of theater audiences, and the changes in the comic representation of class antagonism from Aristophanes to Menander.

Discussion of the relationship between historical conditions and aesthetic form in Euripidean tragedy.

Why do we play games—with and upon each other as well as ourselves? When are winners also losers, and vice-versa? How and to what end do we stretch the spaces of play? What happens when players go ‘out of bounds,’ or when games go ‘too far’? Moreover, what happens when we push the parameters of inquiry: when we play with traditional narrative…[Read more]

Two Pietàs in different media, the first by French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) and the second by Swedish composer Lisa Streich (1985-), permit an examination of the Pietà trope itself by laying open a range of its symbolic aspects. Bouguereau’s Pietà (1876) is discussed in terms of the grief and joy that are both presen…[Read more]

In April 2010, the Guildhall School of Music recognized German composer Helmut Lachenmann’s expertise in extended instrumental techniques, inviting him to give the keynote speech at a research day dedicated to contemporary performance practice; in May, he had a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music conferred upon him for his achievements as a…[Read more]

Reflections on the significance of the sudden announcement, in autumn 2016, of the imminent departure of Emma Rice as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe. Contemporary Theatre Review 27.1, Backpages.

Review of Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love, and Betrayal by Gabrielle Langdon

Chapter in Witwenschaft in der frühen Neuzeit: fürstliche und adlige Witwen zwischen Fremd- und Selbstbestimmung

Chapter 8 in The Single Woman in Medieval and Early Modern England: Her Life and Representation

Ch 5 of Grief and Gender, 700-1700

Chapter 10 in Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations

Chapter in Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe: Gender, Agency and Identity

Afterword of Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe

Ch. 13 of Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe

Introduction to Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe

Live performance lacks the durability of art practices such as photography, film and
painting, and so definitions of ‘live’ acts have traditionally been formulated in terms
of ‘transience’ and ‘disappearance’. In this context the archive and archival documents
are often described as the antithesis of performance’s ontology. An archive’s pri…[Read more]

Recent opera repertoire has seen a wide variety of styles in opera composition. Marco Polo represents a rather unique corner of this wide variety. Tan Dun explores a capacious array of influences in this work. Starting from his own roots, Chinese traditional music, he explores European art tradition to some extent. Tan Dun also touches the styles…[Read more]

Death doom metal or death/doom emerges as a distinct style in early 1990s mostly focused in northern England. This style or, tentatively, sub-genre of doom may be argued to be a leisure space for participants in this culture. Dark leisure theory attempts to describe non-mainstream leisure activity, and even though it started in criminological and…[Read more]

In the post-modern era, the domination of repetition in aesthetics allows for deeper meaning to be conveyed with limited musical material. The repetition, within Sigmund Freud’s interpretation in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), becomes a ‘repetition-compulsion’ that resonates beyond the aural recurrences. Obsession inherent in depre…[Read more]