Research

Theories of event, mimesis and representation; contemporary European theatre; avant-garde performance; performance ethics and cultural politics; theatre as an intellectual practice; performance, citizenship and social practice.

Biography

Adrian joined TFTS as Head of Department in February 2007. He was previously Head of Drama, Theatre, Performance and Art at Roehampton University, London.

Teaching

Theories and Concepts of Performance; European theatre; avant-garde theatre and performance; performance ethics and cultural politics; tragedy and tragic theory; Enlightenment drama and philosophy; contemporary theatre practice.

Publications

Books

• Theatre and Event: Performance and the Ethic of Interruption, London: Palgrave, forthcoming 2009.
• Psychoanalysis and Performance (with Patrick Campbell), London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
• Mourning Diana: Nation, Culture and the Performance of Grief (with Deborah Lynn Steinberg), London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Chapters in Books

• 'Jerome Bel: Radical Subtraction', in Carl Lavery and Claire Finbar, eds., Contemporary French Theatre, London: Palgrave, forthcoming 2009.
• ‘The memory of promise: theatre and the ethic of the future’ in Richard Gough and Judie Christie, eds. A Performance Cosmology: Testimony from the Future, Evidence from the Past, London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
• ‘Desire Amongst the Dodgems: Alain Platel and the Scene of Seduction’ in Joe Kelleher and Nicholas Ridout, eds., Contemporary Theatres in Europe, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 106—119.
• ‘Speak Whiteness: Staging ‘Race’, Performing Responsibility’ (2001) in Psychoanalysis and Performance, pp. 192—202.
• ‘Diana Between Two Deaths: Spectral Ethics and the Time of Mourning’ (1999) in Mourning Diana, pp. 169—186.
• ‘Ghost Writing’ (with Deborah Lynn Steinberg) (1999) in Mourning Diana, pp. 1—14.
• ‘Eating the Other: Performance and the Fantasy of Incorporation’ in Border Patrols: Policing the Boundaries of Heterosexuality, ed. D. L. Steinberg, D. Epstein and R. Johnson, London: Cassell, 1997, pp. 253—273.

Journal Special Issues

• Performance Research, 'On Appearance' (with Richard Gough), London: Routledge, 2008.

Articles in Refereed Journals

• 'Intensities of Appearance', Performance Research, Vol. 12 No.4, London: Routledge, 2008.
• 'Stages of Consensus, Scenes of Dissensus: Human Rights, Politics and Ethics', Keywords in International Performance - A Moving Words, Moving Worlds Special Issue, December 2008.
• ‘A Handbook of Theatrical Devices’ (with Ewan Forster and Christopher Heighes), Performance Research, ‘On Techne’, Vol. 10 No. 4, London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 83—96.
• ‘The Anxiety of The Image’, Parallax ‘Visceral Reason’, Vol. 12 No. 3, London: Routledge, 2005, pp.107—116.
• ‘Troublesome Amateurs: Theatre, ethics, and the labour of mimesis’, Performance Research, ‘On Theatre’, Vol. 10 No. 1, London: Routledge, 2005, pp.26—46.
• ‘Thinking out of Time: Theatre and the Ethic of Interruption’, Performance Research, ‘On Civility’, Vol. 9 No. 4, London, Routledge 2004, pp.99—110.
• Seduction and Translation’ in Performance Research, ‘Translations’, Vol. 7 No.2, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 35—49.
• ‘Parasites’ in Parallax, ‘Hot Property’, Vol. 7 No. 2, London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 31—45.
• ‘The Wolf-Man’ (with Joe Kelleher) in Performance Research, ‘On Animals’, Vol. 5 No. 2, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 82—91.
• ‘Cooking Time with Gertrude Stein’ in Performance Research, ‘On Cooking’, Vol. 4 No.1, London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 44—55.
• ‘Tragic Ideology and the Work of Mourning’ in JPCS: Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, Vol. 3 No. 1, Washington: Critical Press, 1998, pp. 131—136.

Selected Performances

• The Curriculum (dramaturgy for Forster and Heighes), Froebel College, 1999 (120 minutes).
• The Wolf Man, Brixton heArt Room, January 1996 (120 minutes).
• The Maids, Demarco European Art Foundation, August 1994 (75 minutes).

Selected Public Lectures

• ‘The Indeterminate Event’, Institute for Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath, May 2006.
• ‘Home is where the art is’, Institute for Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath, October 2004.
• ‘Algeria/The Screens: Thinking History, Performing Fantasy’, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London, May 2002.
• ‘Mourning Politics’, Institute for Cultural Research, Royal Overseas League, London, October 2000.

Selected International Conference Papers

• ‘Wounds to the Face', Performance Studies International, 'Happening/Performance/Event', New York University, November 2007
• 'Performance Ethics and Relational Aesthetics', plenary presentation at Frankfurt Schauspielhaus, European Dramaturgy in the 21st Century, Johann Goethe Universitat, Frankfurt am Main, September 2007.
• 'A is for Appearance', Keywords in International Performance, University of California MRG in International Performance, University of Warwick, May 2007
• 'Staged Dissensus: Performance and the Critique of Human Rights’ for ‘Needs Must? Performance, bio-power and the staging of ethics’, Performance Studies International, ‘Performing Rights’, Queen Mary University of London, June 2006
• ‘Ethics, Rights and Citizenship’, Beyond Postmodernism II, Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, April 2006
• ‘Theatre, Time, and the Challenge of Ethics’, Beyond Postmodernism, Birkbeck College, University of London, September 2005
• ‘What is a University?’, Research Workshop, Theatre and Performance Research Association Inaugural Conference, University of Manchester, September 2005
• ‘Think Pig!’ Towards Tomorrow? Centre for Performance Research 30th Anniversary Conference, Aberystwyth University, April 2005
• ‘Inhumanities’, Performance Studies International, Brown University, March 2005
• ‘Theatre and Event: Performance and the Ethic of Interruption’, Badiou: Ethics and Subjectivity, London Metropolitan University, December 2003.
• ‘Alain Badiou and The Ethics of Performance’, CIVICCentre, London, April 2003
• ‘Historical Memory and Colonial Melancholy: Theatre and Temporal Indeterminacy’, International Federation for Theatre Research, Amsterdam University, July 2002.
• ‘Seduction and Translation in the Theatre of Alain Platel’, Performance Studies International, University of Mainz, March 2001.
• ‘Beyond Semiotics: Theatre and Recalcitrance’, American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference, ‘Method and Discipline’, State University of New York, November 2000.
• ‘Silent Whiteness: Facing Responsibility’, Performance Studies International, Arizona State University, March 2000.
• ‘Parasites: Performance, Place, Temporality and Ethics’, American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference,‘Geographies of Performance’, University of Minnesota, November 1999

Additional Interests

Adrian welcomes enquiries from prospective research students interested in his areas of specialism. He currently supervises five PhD students, two funded by the AHRC and one by the Ford Foundation. He has previously supervised three PhDs to successful completion, two of which were funded by the AHRC.

Adrian is currently co-director, with Dr Karoline Gritzner, of the Centre for Theatre, Performance and Philosophy (CTPP), and a member of the Advisory Panel for the AHRC Living Landscapes conference being hosted by the Department in June 2009. He is also involved in organising the Performance and Politics Research Group, a collaboration between TFTS and the Department of International Politics.