Synopsis
Theatre Criticism - Changing Landscapes
Published by Methuen
The dominance of the internet has led to a growing trend of selfappointed theatre critics and bloggers who are changing the focus and purpose of the discussion around live performance
Even though the blogosphere has garnered suspicion and hostility from some mainstream newspaper critics, it has also provided significant intellectual and ideological challenges to the increasingly conservative profile of the professional critic
This book features 16 commissioned contributions from scholars, arts journalists and bloggers, as well as a small selection of innovative critical practice
Authors from Australia, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Russia, the UK and the US share their perspectives on relevant historical, theoretical and political contexts influencing the development of the discipline, as well as specific aspects of the contemporary practices and genres of theatre criticism
The book also features an introductory essay by its editor, Duka Radosavljevic
CONTENTS
Duka Radosavljevic - Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes
I Contexts and Histories of Theatre Criticism
George Hunka - Style Versus Substance: American Theatre Criticism Since 1945
Valda Cakare - The Problem of Reliability: Theatre Criticism in Latvia
Savas Patsalidis - From the Uncritical Certainties of Modernism to the Critical Uncertainties of Postmodernism: Reviewing Theatre in Greece
Kristina Matvienko - Russian Theatre Criticism: In Search of Contemporary Relevance
Margherita Laera - How to Get Your Hands Dirty: Old and New Models of 'Militant' Theatre Criticism in Italy
Vasco Boenisch - What German Theatre Critics Think and What Their Readers Expect: An Empirical Analysis of Misunderstandings
Andrew Haydon - A Brief History of Online Theatre Criticism in England
II Critics' Voices
Mark Fisher - Do They Mean Me? A Survey of Fictional Theatre Critics
Mark Brown - Between Journalism and Art: The Location of Criticism in the Twenty-First Century
Jill Dolan - Code-Switching and Constellations: On Feminist Theatre Criticism
Maddy Costa - The Critic as Insider: Shifting UK Critical Practice Towards 'Embedded' Relationships and the Routes This Opens Up Towards Dialogue and Dramaturgy
III Changing Forms and Functions of Criticism
Diana Damian Martin - Criticism as a Political Event
Matthew Reason - Conversation and Criticism: Audiences and Unfinished Critical Thinking
Michelle MacArthur - Crowdsourcing the Review and the Record: A Collaborative Approach to Theatre Criticism and Archiving in the Digital Age
Nataa Govedic - Articism (Art + Criticism) and the Live Birds of Passionate Response
William McEvoy - Performative Criticism and Creative Critical Writing
IV Samples of Critical Practice
Alison Croggon - How to Think Like a Theatre Critic
Open Dialogues - NOTA
Alice Saville - Huff
Megan Vaughan - Teh Internet is a Serious Business