Catherine Silverstone, BA, MA (Waikato) DPhil (Sussex)
Director of Graduate Studies
Location: ArtsOne 3.41bemail: c.silverstone@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)20 7882 8579
Research interests:
- Early modern drama in performance on stage and screen, especially in relation to gender, sexual and racial politics and Shakespeare cultural politics
- Trauma studies and its relation to performance practice and criticism
- Tragedy and the performance of death
- Gender and sexuality, especially in relation to queer performance practices
- Archives, performance histories and historiography
Catherine's research focuses on contemporary theatre and performance, especially in relation to Shakespeare, gender, sexuality and trauma.
She has recently completed a monograph, Shakespeare, Trauma and Contemporary Performance for Routledge (Routledge, 2011), which explores relationships between performances of Shakespeare and various traumatic events and histories including apartheid, colonisation, homophobia and war. She is interested especially in how performances might articulate traumatic events and the ethical and political implications of attempts to engage with trauma in performance. Catherine is currently writing articles on Duckie’s Gay Shame club nights and films of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. She is also preparing an edition of Titus Andronicus for the Norton Shakespeare.
Recent publications include articles on desire in John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore; trauma, Titus Andronicus and South Africa; cross-dressing in Deborah Warner’s Richard II; The Maori Merchant of Venice and colonisation; and the politics of reconstruction at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. She is also co-editor with Sarah Annes Brown of Tragedy in Transition (Blackwell, 2007). She has reviewed books for The Review of English Studies, Contemporary Theatre Review, Shakespeare Quarterly and Early Theatre and performance for Shakespeare.
Catherine’s research has been funded by a British Academy Overseas Conference Grant. She is a member of the Shakespeare in Performance network, QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions and the AHRC's Peer Review College.
Postgraduate supervision:
Catherine is currently supervising the following PhD dissertations:
Brian Lobel (with Professor Lois Weaver), ‘Playing the Cancer Card: Illness, Documentation and Performance’.
Cecilia Sosa (with Professor Maria Delgado), ‘Performance, Kinship and Archives: Queering Acts of Mourning in the Aftermath of Argentina’s 1976-1983 Dictatorship’.
Catherine welcomes applications from research students, especially those interested in working on Shakespeare and early modern drama in performance; trauma studies; queer performance practices.
Publications:
Monograph:
Shakespeare, Trauma and Contemporary Performance. New York: Routledge 2011.
Edited Collection:
Tragedy in Transition, co-editor with Sarah Annes Brown. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Edition:
Titus Andronicus, Q1 and F for Norton Shakespeare, eds. Gordon McMullan and Suzanne Gossett (under contract)
Refereed Journal Articles:
'"Honour the real thing": Shakespeare, Trauma and Titus Andronicus in South Africa', Shakespeare Survey 62 (2009): 46-57.
"It’s not about gender”: Cross-gendered casting in Deborah Warner’s Richard II.’ Women: A Cultural Review 18.2 (2007): 199-212
‘Shakespeare Live: Reproducing Shakespeare at the “New” Globe Theatre.’ Textual Practice 19.1 (2005): 31-50.
Book Chapters:
‘Fatal Attraction: Desire, Anatomy and Death in ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.’ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: A Critical Guide. Ed. Lisa Hopkins. Ser. Continuum Renaissance Drama. London: Continuum, 2010. 77-93.
‘Afterword: Ending Tragedy.’ Tragedy in Transition. Eds. Sarah Annes Brown and Catherine Silverstone. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. 277-286
‘Speaking Māori Shakespeare: The Maori Merchant of Venice and the Legacy of Colonisation.’ Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 127-45
‘Othello’sTravels in New Zealand: Shakespeare, Race and National Identity.’ Remaking Shakespeare: Performance Across Media, Genres and Cultures. Eds. Pascale Aebischer, Edward J. Esche and Nigel Wheale. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003. 74-92
‘Exposing Shakespeare: Introducing English Studies at University.’ For All Time? Critical Issues in Teaching Shakespeare. Eds. Paul Skrebels and Sieta Van Der Hoven. Kent Town, South Australia: Wakefield P, 2002. 17-25
Performance Review
Rev. of Shakespeare's Othello (directed by Barrie Rutter for Northern Broadsides and West Yorkshire Playhouse) at Trafalgar Studios (Studio 1), London, 2 December 2009, Shakespeare 6.2 (2010): 263-66.