Theatre Histories, 4th edition, is now published

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The 4th edition of Theater Histories: An Introduction, written by Daphne Lei, Tamara Underiner, Patricia Ybarra and me, with me again serving as General Editor, has now been published by Routledge. I think it’s a significant improvement over the 3rd edition, which was already a massive improvement over the earlier edition–certainly more than I expected, since I was anticipating a more modest updating and filling in gaps. But my co-authors saw there was more to do than I realized, particularly in the coverage of China and Latin America (and also some issues in the book’s organization) and they deserve the credit for most of the improvements. The one notable change I introduced was to the case studies (short essays on particular people, styles, issues, etc., incorporated in each of the chapters). Previously all case studies were written by the textbook authors; I decided we could build the book’s authoritativeness and variety of viewpoints by commissioning scholars with expertise to write some of the case studies.

If you teach theater history survey courses, you can request an examination copy from Routledge; otherwise you can get it from your local college bookstore, or order it from any of the usual places (including of course Amazon); many academic libraries don’t buy textbooks, so don’t expect to find it that way. Due to a change in library cataloging rules, the book appears to be by Daphne; I’m trying to get that fixed, but it probably won’t happen soon.

It was always expected that Theatre Histories would have an ever-changing roster of authors. The 4th edition is the first with an entirely new group. I decided from the start (some four years ago!) that I would step down after this edition, and Tamara intends to too. If you’re interested in shaping minds….

Front cover of Theatre Histories, with a photo of the San Francisco Mime Troupe in performance.

Article on Deleuzean Virtuality and Critical Realism

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My article on “Deleuzean Virtuality and Critical Realism” is currently under review. A copy of the original manuscript can be downloaded on the Publications and Drafts page.

Publication updates

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Some updates:

The fourth edition of Theatre Histories is complete, and I expect that Routledge will publish it in April or so. It advanced over the third edition far more than I expected: my new co-authors Daphne Lei and Patricia Ybarra (along with continuing co-author Tamara Underiner) wanted to do more than simply update and fill holes, which took the book a definite leap forward. It’s high time that theater instructors who have eschewed textbooks give it a good look!

An editor requested that I cut the manuscript of The Question of Theater in half. I was less than thrilled with the idea, but it turned out less agonizing than I expected (for one thing, I had far too many notes) and in retrospect I should have done it earlier. But I’m not sure of the proposal’s current status, and for various reasons I think I’ll need to shop around the book for a while longer. For one thing, I take aim at a long list of sacred cows, including anthropological theories of theater’s origins and mechanisms — e.g., ritual, play, and mimesis (the latter also having a lot of Platonic baggage) — and the bias toward various avant-gardes (especially my critique of Lehmann’s theory of “postdramatic theater”). Also, pretty much every step of the way, this project has encountered weird difficulties, including a couple cases of outright editorial malpractice. Strange but true; things can go pear-shaped now and then in the publishing world

As part of cutting the manuscript, I removed an appendix with short discussions on Peirce and Deleuze, some of which first appeared as blog posts. To compensate, I wrote a full article, “Peirce’s Universal Categories and Critical Realist Ontology,” now under review (you can download the submitted version from the Publications and Drafts page). I’m in the midst of writing an article on Deleuze and critical realism, which similarly replaces a (much shorter) part of the appendix.

Pre-pub of ontology roundtable available

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A pre-publication version of “ Does critical realism need the concept of three domains of reality? A Roundtable ” is now available, in which I have a contribution titled “There are three domains—just not exactly Bhaskar’s.” It is largely the same as my blog post here. The final version is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2023.2180965.

There are three domains—just not exactly Bhaskar’s

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There has been a series of blog posts on the Critical Realist Network site regarding the necessity of Bhaskar’s three ontological domains (the real, the actual, and the empirical). The first post, “Let’s stop talking about the three domains of reality” by Tom Fryer and Cristián Navarrete, contends that they’re confusing, redundant, and ultimately entirely unnecessary since everything is real. In response, Dave Elder-Vass wrote “Maybe two parts of reality instead of three?“, in which he retains the real/actual distinction but absorbs the empirical into the actual as just one among many events. I’ve replied with “There are three domains—just not exactly Bhaskar’s,” arguing that we need all three domains but Bhaskar’s empirical domain must be transformed into the semiosic domain (a position I first took in my critical realist article, and have drummed for ever since). The page contains a link to a PDF version.

UPDATE: The four posts constituting the discussion (Tom & Cristián’s, Dave’s, mine, and then one by Ruth Groff, “There Aren’t Really Three Domains: or, Metaphor Is Great, Except When It’s Not“) will be published as an article in the Journal of Critical Realism. I will announce when that happens.