Theatre, Performance and Philosophy

The focus of the group’s activity is the examination of any aspect of theatre and performance through philosophical frameworks. The TPP working group meets annually at the TaPRA conference and maintains a lively debate in between through the organisation of themed interim events at various partner institutions. Past themed interim events include: ‘Performing Sublimities’ (2011), ‘Performance and Biopolitics’ (2012), ‘Performance and Mystical Experience’ (2013), ‘Animal Encounters: Performance, Animality and Posthumanism’ (2014), ‘Theatre, Performance, Foucault!’ (2015), notions and performances of displacement (2016), ‘Reaching/Outreaching’ (2018), ‘Magic, Endings/Exits and Water: How does performance escape?’ (2019), ‘Unknowing: Modes of Performance’ (2021), ‘Survival’ (2022). Selected papers of high quality research are published as edited collections. For any questions and expressions of interest to join the group or send an abstract, please use the Working Group’s email address (philosophy@tapra.org) or use the “Contact WG Convenors” link on this page. To contact convenors directly, you can email Jenny Swingler (Techne AHRC PhD Candidate University of Roehampton: swinglej@roehampton.ac.uk), Dr Vânia Gala (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: Vgala@rcs.ac.uk), Dr Annalaura Alifuoco (Liverpool Hope University: alifuoa@hope.ac.uk).