·        To understand the use and application of a range of critical and theoretical methods to research in the performing arts.

·        To demonstrate knowledge of theoretical and critical issues relevant to the study of performance in a globalised world.

·        To develop an understanding of processes of documentation, data collection and analysis that are relevant to advanced theatre research projects.

·        To enhance abilities of critical writing.

·        To facilitate a sophisticated analysis of the varying relationships between theory and practice

·        To convincingly organize and present conceptual ideas for culturally appropriate, critical and practical study of performance at the postgraduate level.

Knowledge and Understanding:

·        An enhanced critical awareness of a range of practice/theory relationships in current scholarship and professional practice.

·        An in-depth exploration of performative practices in writing and performance.

·        A detailed knowledge of the norms of advanced academic writing.

Cognitive/Intellectual Skills:

·        Ability to engage critically with and synthesise complex theories, methodologies and independent research and articulate findings orally and in performed and written outcomes.

·        Ability to appraise and debate projects that engage in creative and intellectual interchange between theory and practice.

Practical/Key Skills:

·        Ability to interrogate ideas and concepts through oral and written projects, interpret them through theoretical constructs and debate the implications for practice.

·        Ability to critique own and others’ work in a constructive and incisive way.

·        The ability to create writing that investigates advanced concepts and practice and is evidence of intellectual rigour.

Plays:

Barker, H. Scenes From an Execution

Becket, S. Waiting for Godot.

Brecht, B.  Mother Courage and Her Children

Churchill, C.  Cloud Nine.

Euripides, Medea.

Fornes, F.  Fefu and Her Friends.

Gambaro, G.  Information for Foreigners

Kane, S.  Blasted

Lepage, Robert. Seven Streams of the River Ota.

Müller, H.  Hamletmachine

Rame, F. Medea

Shakespeare, W.  Hamlet.

Theory/Criticism:

Artaud, Antonin.  The Theatre and Its Double.  Trans. Mary Caroline Richards. New York : Grove Press, 1994.

Aston, Elaine and Savona , G.  Theatre as Sign System: A Semiotics of Text and

            Performance, London : Routledge, 1991.

Barthes, Roland.   ‘The World of Wrestling’, in Mythologies, London : Vintage, 1993.

-----.  ‘The Death of the Author.’ In Image-Music-Text.  Trans Stephen Heath.  Galsgow: William Collins Sons & Co, 1977 (pp 142-148).

Birch, A.  Sighting / Citing  History through Performance: The Wollstonecraft

      Live Experience! in Alison Oddey and Christine White (ed) Modes of

      Spectating, Intellect, 2008.

Birch, A.  Staging and Citing Gendered Meanings: A practice-based study of

      representational strategies in live and mediated performance in Birgit Haas

      (Hg.): Der postfeministische Diskurs.pp 79-100, Würzburg: Königshausen &

      Neumann, 2006.

Bogart, Anne.  And Then You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World.  New York : Routledge, 2007.

Counsell, Colin. Performance Analysis: an Introductory Casebook. London :

            Routledge, 2001.

De Certeau, Michel.  The Writing of History.  Trans. Tom Conley.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

Fortier, Mark.  Theory/Theatre: An Introduction (2^nd Edition).  London : Routledge, 2002.

Foucault, Michel.  The Archaeology of Knowledge, and the Discourse on Language.  Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith.  New York : Pantheon Books, 1972.

Grotowski, Jerzy.  Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen , 1969.

Haseman, B. Rupture and Recognition: Identifying the Performative research

            Paradigm in Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. (eds) Practice as Research: Approaches

            to Creative Arts Enquiry London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.

Kershaw, B.  Performance, memory, heritage, history, spectacle – The Iron Ship. 

      Studies in  Theatre and Performance 21 (3), pp 132-149.

Knorr-Cetina, K.  Objectual Relations in: Schatzki, T, Knorr-Cetina, K and

      von Savigny, E (eds) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London and

New York : Routledge, 2001 (pp 175-188).

Lansdale Janet.  Decentring Dance Texts. Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2001.

Lawrence K.  (2007).  St. Catherine’s Chapel Pilgrimage: a guide in About

            Performance No. 7, Local Acts: Site-based Performance Practice, pp165 - 179

Lyotard, Jean-Francios.  The Postmodern Explained.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992 (pp 1-16).

Pavis, P (1996)  ‘The Actors’ Score and Underscore’ through to end of chapter

            on ‘The Actor’ in Performance Analysis: Theater, Dance, Film, Ann Arbor :

            University of Michigan Press.

Pearson, M. and Shanks, M.  (2001)  Theatre/Archaeology.  London : Routledge, 2001.

States, Bert O.  Great Reckonings in Little Rooms. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 (pp 1-47).

Thomson, Peter (compiler).  Practice as research.  Studies in Theatre and

            Performance 22, 3, 2003, (pp 159–180).

Wilshire, Bruce.  Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor.  Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982.