Dr Stephen Greer
- Senior Lecturer (Theatre, Film & Television Studies)
email:
Stephen.Greer@glasgow.ac.uk
Theatre Film & Television, Studies
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9722-3643Research interests
My research is centred on the intersection of contemporary theatre and performance, cultural politics and queer theory.
I am the author of Contemporary British Queer Performance (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) and Queer exceptions: solo performance in neoliberal times (Manchester University Press 2018) as well as a range of essays and articles about British and European theatre. I most often write about live performance and the politics of sexuality and gender, but have broad interests in the cultural politics of visual art, TV, film and video-games.
My current projects focus on the contentious relationship between contemporary performance and neoliberalism. These include a new history of Live Art in Scotland, alongside a special issue of Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance on the politics of resilience and resourcefulness.
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the editorial board for the journal RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance and the advisory board for Contemporary Theatre Review.
Grants
I hold an AHRC Leadership Fellowship for the project Live Art in Scotland, beginning in January 2021.
Though Scotland has been home to some of Live Art’s most (in)famous events, existing histories of theatre and performance emphasize a literary dramatic tradition of plays and playwrights, and rarely address Live Art as a significant field of practice. This project intends to redress that omission while exploring the structures of curation, programming and funding that might enable experimental performance practices to thrive.
The broader ambition of the project is also informed by an understanding of how ‘resilience’ has become a significant concept in UK arts funding circles, often with very little regard for its consequence for individual arts practitioners, especially those who are already excluded from or marginalised within the cultural sector. This idea is especially consequential for a sector already characterized by risk and experimentation, and dominated by solo and/or freelance practitioners.
Supervision
I welcome proposals from prospective PhD or MPhil students who are interested in studying at the University of Glasgow. I am particularly able to support projects involving:
- contemporary British / European theatre and performance
- Live Art and solo performance
- queer studies / sexuality, gender and feminism
- new media and digital performance / theatre, performance and gaming
- social and applied theatre
- the cultural politics of neoliberalism
For initial conversations and to discuss possible funding routes, please contact me at stephen.greer@glasgow.ac.uk.
- Avsar, Rasim Erdem
DRAMATURGIES OF GRIEF AND HOPE: CONTEMPORARY QUEER THEATRE IN TURKEY - Capaldi, Eleanor
To what extent can the use of digitised images of artwork facilitate polyvocality of interpretation online?
Teaching
I am the Postgraduate Taught Programme Convenor for Theatre Studies, and course convenor for MLitt Theatre Studies and MLitt Playwriting & Dramaturgy.
I lecture widely across our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and lead specialist Honours courses including The Activist Stage and Queer Exceptions. Focusing on contemporary and c20th performance, my teaching combines traditional university formats – lectures and seminars – with practice-based workshops. This approach is grounded in the belief that theory, history and practice can inform each other, and that performance can be used to ask and answer questions in the same moment. My areas of expertise include LGBTQ performance, political theatre, documentary and verbatim practices, as well as devising and improvisation.
In my previous roles as exams officer and convenor of level 1 Theatre Studies, I won an STA Award for Best Feedback and a College of Arts Individual Teaching Excellence Award.
Research datasets
Additional information
Selected Conferences and Public Events
2019
- ‘The making of an arts-based career’. Deakin Creative Arts Research Symposium. Deakin University. Melbourne, Australia, November 2019.
- ‘Playing with Pride’. Panel on LGBTQ+ gaming. Glasgow ComicCon. September 2019.
- ‘Bouncing back from disaster: “adaptive resilience” and Live Art in Scotland’. PSi#25, University of Calgary, Canada, July 2019.
- ‘Queerying Method’. Research methodology workshop for SGSAH Summer School. Glasgow, June 2019.
- Live Art Scotland Forum and Live Art Lunches, organised as part of Take Me Somewhere festival, Glasgow, May 2019.
2018 and earlier
- From Egypt to Scotland, across borders and genders– National Theatre Scotland’s Adam and the figure of the trans migrant”, IFTR/FIRT, University of Arts Belgrade, June 2018.
- Optimism at the End of the World. London Theatre Seminar, London, December 2017.
- Illegible Laughter: recognition and effacement in the work of La Ribot. TaPRA, The University of Salford, Manchester, August 2017.
- Disgusting bodies: Martin O’Brien and the performance of (auto)immunity. Theatres of Contagion: Infectious Performance, Birkbeck University of London, May 2017.
- Performing mindfulness: self-care and the responsible subject. The Art of Care-full Practice Symposium at Take Me Somewhere festival, Glasgow, March 2017.
