International Performance Research Pedagogies

The essays in this volume take stock of the achievements, insights and challenges of what international performance research is - or ought to be - about. The volume takes the Erasmus Mundus MA Programme (2008-2013) in International Performance Research (MAIPR) as an exemplary case to interrogate broader questions that are pertinent to the present and the future of the discipline of theatre and performance studies. The programme was run jointly by the universities of Warwick (UK), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Helsinki/Tampere (Finland) and Arts in Belgrade (Serbia). What has the insertion of the 'international' dimension done to the disciplinary and canon formation of Theatre and Performance Studies? What has the participation of students and scholars from Africa, the Americas, the Balkans and Asia-Pacific accomplished in terms of re-thinking the borders and canons of the field of performance? What understanding of the 'international' has emerged from the European aspects of co-operation, which has precipitated the need and desire to communicate across different disciplinary legacies of theatre and performance? By way of reflecting on the discipline of Performance Studies using the MAIPR programme as a case study in point, the volume addresses the broader question of the critical link between the discipline of Performance Studies and Humanities education in the contemporary university in the context of globalisation.