Professor Jen Harvie, BA (McGill), MA (Guelph), PhD (Glasgow)

Profile

I am Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance here at Queen Mary University of London. My research focuses on the cultural politics of performance.

I come from Toronto and did my BA and MA in Drama at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Guelph, respectively. I did my PhD in Drama at the University of Glasgow. The focus of my research on the cultural politics of performance was shaped by this background, and particularly by my early research in postcolonialisms, feminisms, and cultural materialism.

I have been based in London since 1994, when I first worked at Queen Mary, and I have been back at QMUL since 2004 (having worked also at Royal Holloway University of London, the University of Nottingham, Goldsmiths, and Roehampton University). I was QMUL’s Head of Drama from 2005-07 and Acting Head in 2010 and 2012. I have been Director of Research in the School of English and Drama. I am currently Director of Graduate Taught Programmes in Drama.

I sometimes use Twitter: @ProfJenHarvie

Specialist Advisor

In 2017, I was Specialist Advisor to the United Kingdom House of Lords Select Committee of Communications Inquiry into the Theatre Industry which produced the report Skills for the Theatre Industry: Developing the Pipeline of Talent, 3 May 2017, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldcomuni/170/170.pdf

Fellowship

Université Grenoble Alpes (France), Invited Professor Research Fellowship, 2019

Peer Review

I have been a member of the AHRC’s Peer Review College since 2004 (except for a break 2010-11) and have done several final panel assessments.

Other organisations I have reviewed for include:

• Leverhulme
• Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, FNRS, Belgium
• UKRI (UK Research and Innovation)
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
• Israel Science Foundation
• Government of Canada, Canada 150 Research Chairs Program
• Vienna Science and Technology Fund [WWTF]
• Austrian Academy of Sciences
• Canada Council for the Arts 

Journals and publishers I have reviewed for include: 

• Palgrave Macmillan
• Routledge Research
• Routledge Education
• Routledge Media
• Theatre Journal
• Contemporary Theatre Review
• Feminist Studies
• Modern Drama
• Screen
• Journal of Gender Studies
• British Journal of Canadian Studies,
• Theatre Research in Canada
• International Journal of Francophone Studies
• Platform
• Québec Studies
• Environment and Planning A
• The International Journal of Cultural Policy
• Theatre Survey
• RiDE: Research in Drama Education
• Cultural Trends
• Theatre Research International
• Courtauld Books Online
• Routledge, NY
• Art Journal
• Performance Matters
• Northwestern University Press
• Cambridge University Press
• Nordic Journal on Law and Society

Editorial work

• Co-editor, Theatre &, with Palgrave Macmillan from 2009-2021; with Bloomsbury Methuen from 2022.
• Associate Editor, Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge) 2005 – 2008
• Theatre Journal (Johns Hopkins UP), 2002 – 2004
• Book Review Editor, Contemporary Theatre Review 2005 – 2008
• Editorial Associate, Contemporary Theatre Review 2008 – present
• Editorial Advisory Board, Performance Matters 2014 – present              
• Editorial Board Member, Imagined Theatres, ed. Daniel Sack, 2018 - present
• Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches Théâtrales au Canada, 2015-2018

Award jury member       

Patrick O’Neill Award for best play anthology, Canadian Association for Theatre Research/Association canadienne de la recherche théâtrale, 2016-18 – in 2019

PhD examining

• Cambridge University, 2022
• University of Tasmania, 2021
• University of Toronto, 2019
• Goldsmiths, University of London, 2019
• Queen Mary U of London (Drama; CDA with Duckie), 2019
• De Montfort University (Faculty of Art, Design & Humanities), 2017
• The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, University of London, 2016
• Queen’s University, Belfast (Drama), 2014
• University of Reading (Film, Theatre & Television), 2009
• Glasgow University (Centre for Cultural Policy Research), 2009
• Loughborough University (English and Drama), 2008
• University of Warwick (Theatre Studies), 2003, 2008, spring 2019, autumn 2019
• University of Nottingham (Drama, in English Studies), 2003
• Royal Holloway (Drama and Theatre), University of London, 1999, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, forthcoming 2023

External examining

• University of York (UK), MA Theatre-Making, 2019-23
• University College Dublin: BA degrees and MA Degrees, 2019-22
• Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin (BA Drama), 2014-18
• Queen’s University Belfast (MA Drama and Performance), 2011-15
• University of Edinburgh (MSc Film in the Public Space; then Film, Exhibition, and Curation), 2011-15
• Royal Holloway, U of L (Drama and Theatre Studies, BA), 2005 – 09
• London Metropolitan University (Performing Arts, BA), 2003-07
• University of Portsmouth (Creative Arts, BA), 2003-05

Post-doctoral mentor

• Dr Alexandra Portmann, Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoctoral Fellowship, ‘Mobile Repertoires – European Theatre Festivals and Digital Culture’, April-December 2017.
• Dr Tiffany Watt-Smith, British Academy Fellowship, ‘A Cultural History of Compulsive Bodily Imitation, 1850 to the Present’, QMUL, 2011-14
• Dr Keren Zaiontz, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada, Postdoctoral Fellowship, ‘Casting the Nation: Place Patriots on the Global Stage’, QMUL, 2012-14

Teaching

My central teaching aim is to enable students to develop abilities and confidence in thinking and communicating critically, creatively, and in complex ways, independently and in groups. My teaching focuses on the cultural politics of contemporary performance, including the cultural politics of performance-making.

Undergraduate Teaching

I have recently taught on:

• DRA114: London/Culture/Performance
• DRA242: Group Practical Project
• DRA333: Offstage London
• DRA329: Written Research Project
• ESH295: London: Walking the City

Postgraduate Teaching

I have recently taught on:

• DRA7011 Culture, Ethics, Politics
• DRA7712: Live Art Histories
• DRA7001: Contemporary Theatre and Performance
• DRA7000: Dissertation

Research

Research Interests:

• The cultural politics of contemporary theatre, performance and art
• Feminism and performance
• Performance and the city
• Cultural policy and arts funding
• Cultural institutions and cultural networks
• Contemporary performance-making processes and practitioners

The cultural politics of contemporary theatre, performance and art

I am currently working on three main projects. With Bloomsbury Methuen, Dan Rebellato and I co-edit the series Theatre &, about ‘theatre & everything else’. The series aims to make complex ideas and debates accessible through original critical interventions. Within a decade of its launch in 2009, this series had sold over 90,000 copies; in 2023 we publish the fiftieth volume. I wrote Theatre & the City, which has a foreword by Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells and has been translated into Farsi. With Dan Rebellato, I am co-editing The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre Since 1945 (forthcoming 2023). I am also working on a monograph for Palgrave Macmillan on women, feminism, theatre, and performance in the UK in the age of austerity.

My most recent solo-authored monograph is Fair Play – Art, Performance and Neoliberalism, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013. Fair Play examines participation in contemporary art and performance to explore how its quality is affected by its relationships to work, cultural policy, urban space, and capital. The book asks what effects this participation has in contemporary culture, in particular whether it enhances democracy or contributes to neoliberal capitalism. Some of the research on arts funding in this book was supported by a grant from what is now The Culture Capital Exchange. I discuss this book in more detail in a podcast on the New Books Network. I follow up some of the material on arts funding in a 2015 article in Cultural Trends (24:1), ‘Funding, Philanthropy, Structural Inequality and Decline in England’s Theatre Ecology’.

In 2018, I co-edited a special issue of the journal Contemporary Theatre Review on feminisms with Sarah Gorman and Geraldine Harris, contributing an article on Split Britches’ Ruff and Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone, ‘Boom! Adversarial Ageism, Chrononormativity, and the Anthropocene’. I have co-edited two previous issues of Contemporary Theatre Review: ‘The Cultural Politics of London 2012’ (with Keren Zaiontz, 2013) on the impact of artistic, activist, and other practices produced for the 2012 Olympics, Paralympics and Cultural Olympiad, which includes an article by me on the regeneration legacy promised to East London; and ‘Globalisation and Theatre’ (with Dan Rebellato, 2006), with an article by me on consumer capitalism and Michael Landy’s Break Down.

In 2014, I published the co-authored, revised and illustrated second edition of The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance (first published 2006, co-author Paul Allain). The Companion examines significant events, people, companies, practices and ideas which have shaped performance in the 20th and 21st centuries. A Romanian translation was published in 2012. Significant elements of this text appear on the Routledge Performance Archive website. A third revised edition is in preparation.

My first monograph Staging the UK (Manchester UP, 2005) examines important performance in the UK from the mid-1980s into the 21st century in relation to national and supranational identities, globalisation, diaspora, New Labour, devolution, and European unification.

Contemporary performance-making processes and practitioners

Much of my recent work has engaged with performance makers to explore how and why they make their work as they do. I examine what we can learn about, both, how to make performance and how to realise social and political aims through creative practices.

In 2018, I edited and co-wrote Scottee: I Made It, a book about London-born maker Scottee and the roles of class, queerness, fatness, survival, and activism in his work. Designed by Alexander Innes and published by the Live Art Development Agency (LADA), the book includes writings and interviews from over fifty contributing theatre and performance makers, activists, and other collaborators, including Selina Thompson, Sofie Hagen, Jamal Gerald, and David Hoyle. It launched in London at LADA and the Roundhouse, and in Manchester at HOME, and includes several interviews and an essay by me.

In 2017, I launched the podcast Stage Left with Jen Harvie, a series of interviews with performance makers about their work, produced by Debbie Kilbride. Interviewees include: Breach Theatre co-directors Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett on It’s True, It’s True, It’s True; Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill (Cade & MacAskill) on MOOT MOOT; Reverend Billy; Selina Thompson on salt.; Split Britches’ Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw; Scottee; Nic Green and Rosana Cade on Cock and Bull; Lucy McCormick on Triple Threat; and Sh!t Theatre.

In 2015, with QMUL Drama's Professor Lois Weaver I co-edited and co-wrote a book on her performance career entitled The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, designed by David Caines. The book was published in the series Intellect Live co-produced by Intellect and LADA, with launches at the Abrons Arts Centre in New York, and at the Chelsea Theatre and QMUL in London. In February 2013, Lois and I worked on artist Suzanne Lacy’s Silver Action in the Tanks at London’s Tate Modern as directors of conversation at the table of major feminist activists.

With Andy Lavender, I co-edited Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes (Manchester UP, 2010).

 

Publications

Monographs

(with Paul Allain), The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance, second edition (Oxon: Routledge, 2014)

Fair Play – Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

Theatre & the City (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Staging the UK (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005)

Edited Collections

Scottee: I Made It (London: Live Art Development Agency, 2018)

Sarah Gorman, Geraldine Harris and Jen Harvie, editors, special issue on Contemporary Feminisms and Performance, Contemporary Theatre Review, 28.3 (2018)

Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, eds, The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver (London: Intellect Live [Intellect + Live Art Development Agency], 2015)

Jen Harvie and Keren Zaiontz, co-eds, special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review on ‘‘The Cultural Politics of London 2012’, 23:4 (2013)

Jen Harvie and Andy Lavender, eds, edited Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2010)

Jen Harvie and Dan Rebellato, eds, ‘Globalisation and Theatre’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 16 (2006)

Selected Journal Articles

‘A Sense of Place: Staging Psychogeographies of the UK Housing Crisis’, Contemporary Drama in English, special issue on ‘Theatre and the City’. Forthcoming 2023.

‘Genderqueering Time, Ageing, and Relationships with Split Britches’, Journal of the British Academy, special issue on ‘Narratives of Old Age and Gender’, eds Siân Adiseshiah, Amy Culley, Jonathon Shears. Forthcoming 2023.

‘Boom! Adversarial Ageism, Chrononormativity, and the Anthropocene’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 28.3 (2018), 332-44; special issue on feminist theatre and performance, co-edited by Sarah Gorman, Gerry Harris, and Jen Harvie.

‘Funding, Philanthropy, Structural Inequality and Decline in England’s Theatre Ecology”, Cultural Trends, 24.1 (2015): 56-61 doi: 10.1080/09548963.2014.1000586

‘Brand London 2012 and “The Heart of East London”: Competing Urban Agendas at the 2012 Games’, Contemporary Theatre Review, special issue on ‘‘The Cultural Politics of London 2012’, co-ed. Harvie and Keren Zaiontz, 23:4 (2013), 486-501

‘Democracy and Neoliberalism in Art's Social Turn and Roger Hiorns's Seizure’, Performance Research, 16 (2011), 113-23 doi:10.1080/13528165.2011.578842

‘Witnessing Michael Landy's Break Down: Metonymy, Affect, and Politicised Performance in an Age of Global Consumer Capitalism’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 16 (2006), 62-72 doi:10.1080/10486800500451013

‘Nationalizing the “Creative Industries”’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13.1 (2003), 15-32

‘Cultural Effects of the Edinburgh International Festival: Elitism, Identities, Industries’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 13.4 (2003), 12-26

‘DV8's Can We Afford This: The Cost of Devising on Site for Global Markets’, Theatre Research International, 27 (2002), 68-77

Jen Harvie and Erin Hurley, ‘States of Play: Locating Québec in the Performances of Robert Lepage, Ex Machina, and the Cirque du Soleil’. Theatre Journal 51.3 (1999): 299-315. Winner of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (USA) Essay in Criticism Prize, 2000. 

Chapters in Edited Collections

With Dan Rebellato, ‘Introduction’, Harvie and Rebellato, eds, The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre Since 1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2023.

With Dan Rebellato, ‘The Fringe: The Rise and Fall of Radical Alternative Theatre’, in Harvie and Rebellato, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Theatre Since 1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2023.

‘Theatre Subsidy: Strength, Elitism, Metropolitanism, Racism’, in Harvie and Dan Rebellato, eds, The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre Since 1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2023.

‘”How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love”: Staging Relational Care with Lois Weaver and Split Britches’, in Ananda Breed and Tim Prentki eds, The Companion to Applied Performance, Caoimhe McAvinchey UK and Ireland section editor, London: Routledge, forthcoming 2020.

‘International Theatre Festivals in the UK: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a Model Neo-liberal Market’, The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. Ric Knowles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2020.

‘Neoliberalism, Theatre, Performance, Inequality, and Alternatives’, in print and ‘Neoliberalism, Theatre, and Performance’, video online on Digital Theatre, 4 x 45 | Theatre and Performance in a Neoliberal Age, ed. Andy Lavender, London: Digital Theatre and Routledge, forthcoming 2020, http://www.digitaltheatre.com/

‘Feminism, Audience Interaction, and Performer Authority,’ in Staging Spectators in Immersive Performances: Commit Yourself!, eds. Doris Kolesch, Theresa Schütz and Sophie Nikoleit, Oxon: Routledge, 2019, 143-157, and on https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/

 ‘The Power of Abuse’, in The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics, eds Peter Eckersall and Helena Grehan, Oxon: Routledge, 2019, 163-167, and on https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/

‘Institutional Celebration’, in AGENCY: A Partial History of Live Art, ed. Theron Schmidt, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2019.

‘Scottee: His Life and His Work’, in Scottee: I Made It, ed. Jen Harvie, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2018, 10-23.

‘A Practice that Does Stuff’, with Selina Thompson, in Scottee: I Made It, ed. Jen Harvie, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2018, 94-101. 

‘The First Ten Years’, with Scottee, in Scottee: I Made It, ed. Jen Harvie, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2018, 126-139.

‘Let’s Have a Cup of Tea’, with Scottee, in Scottee: I Made It, ed. Jen Harvie, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2018, 246-259.

‘The Housing Crisis, Art, and Performance’, in Performance in the Public Sphere, ed. Ana Pais, Lisbon: Centro de Estudos de Teatro /FLUL and Performativa, ebook, 2018, 202-239, available for free download at www.performativa.pt

‘I, Marjorie’; ‘Gloss on “I, Marjorie”’; ‘The Means of Production’; and ‘Gloss on Sylvan Oswald’s ‘LAST RESORT [No One Can Stop You Now]”’, in Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage, ed. Daniel Sack, London and New York: Routledge, 2017, 112-113, 134, and 129. ‘The Means of Production’ is online at http://imaginedtheatres.com/book-selections/

‘Performance as Social Act’, in Perform, Experience, Re-Live, ed. Cecilia Wee, London: Tate Public Programmes, 2016, pp. 70-86.

‘Introduction: Welcome Home’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015.

‘Places to Start’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015.

‘Citizen Femme’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015.

‘Lois, Love, and Work’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015. 

‘Imagine It, Make It, Change It’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015.

‘Tammy WhyNot: Stage/life Superhero’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015.

‘Hidden Treasures’, in The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, eds. Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, Intellect Live series, Bristol and London: Intellect + Live Art Development Agency, 2015.

‘Beg, Borrow or Steal: Lois Weaver in Conversation with Jen Harvie’, in Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat, ed. Margherita Laera, London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2014.

‘Dialogic Monologue: A Dialogue.’ With Richard Paul Knowles. Originally published in Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada 15.2 (1994): 136-63. Winner of the Association for Canadian Theatre Research Richard Plant Essay Prize, 1995. Rpt. in Ric Knowles, The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies. Toronto: ECW Press, 1999. Rpt. in Jenn Stephenson, ed., Solo Performance, in series Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2011.

‘Introduction: Contemporary Theatre in the Making.’ Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes. Eds. Jen Harvie and Andy Lavender. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010: 1-16.

‘Agency and Complicity in “A Special Civic Room”: London’s Tate Modern Turbine Hall’ in Performance and the City, eds DJ Hopkins, Shelley Orr and Kim Solga, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 204-221.

‘Constructing Fictions of an Essential Reality or “This Pickshur Is Niiiice”: Judith Thompson's Lion in the Streets.’ Rpt. in Judith Thompson, Ed. Ric Knowles, Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press (Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English series), 2005, 47-58. Originally in Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada 13.1/2 (1992): 81-93. 

‘Being Her: Presence, Absence, and Performance in the Art of Janet Cardiff and Tracey Emin’, in Autobiography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance, ed. M. B. Gale and V. Gardner (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2004), pp. 194-216

Other selected publications

‘It’s True, Feminism, Verbatim Theatre, and Truth’, on Digital Theatre [digital platform], to accompany the video of Breach performance company’s It’s True, It’s True, It’s True, and my Stage Left podcast interview with Breach’s co-directors Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens retitled here ‘The Making of It’s True, It’s True, It’s True’, 2021, http://www.digitaltheatre.com/

See also my Queen Mary Research Publications profile

Supervision

I would welcome enquiries from potential doctoral students interested in any of the areas of my research.

I have recently supervised the following successful PhD projects:

• Sarahleigh Castelyn, ‘South African Dance Theatre: The Body as a Site of Struggle’ (2009)
• James Reynolds, ‘Evaluating Performance/Re-evaluating Process: An Investigation into and Reassessment of Robert Lepage’s Devised Theatre Practice’ (2010)
• Johanna Linsley, ‘I Know Something You Don’t Know: Contemporary Performance and the Politics of Expertise’ (2013)
• Simone Hancox, 'The Contemporary Art of Globalization: Performance, Critique, Complicity' (2013)
• Katja Hilevaara, ‘Creative Spectatorship and Memory Response: I Remember, or On Finding Contemporary Performance in Memory’ (2015)
• Sarah Thomasson, ‘Producing the Festival City: Place Myths and the Festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh’ (2015)
• Cecilie Sachs Olsen (2^nd supervisor; 1^st supervisor David Pinder, Geography), ‘On Engagement: Negotiating the Material and the Imagined in Socially Engaged Artistic Practice’ (2016)
• Sarah Bartley, ‘Performing Welfare: Discourse, Image, and Embodiment in Representations of Unemployment in Participatory Performance’ (2017)
• Lynne McCarthy, ‘Performance and the Cultural Politics of Property’ (2018)
• Wendy Hubbard, ‘IN COMPANY: Apparitions of Togetherness in Contemporary Theatre and Performance’ (2019)

Select doctoral training

Workshop leader, ‘Archiving the Future City’, Arts in the Alps International Doctoral School, Université Grenoble Alpes, France, 17-22 June, 2019 (17 June).

‘Love as Collaboration: Reflections on The Only Way Home Is Through The Show’: Workshop with Lois Weaver, Sexuality Summer School, 2016: Love and Its Others, University of Manchester, 26 May, 2016. 

Public Engagement

I support public engagement in the arts especially through work on radio, at theatres and galleries, and through podcasts and other online media.  My radio work has been with BBC Radios 3 and 4. Theatre and performance organisations I’ve worked with include the National Theatre, Artsadmin, the Live Art Development Agency, the Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), Rift Theatre at Styx, Chelsea Theatre, Abrons Arts Centre (New York), Untitled Projects at the Barbican, and Northern Stage (Newcastle). Art galleries I’ve collaborated with include Tate Modern, the Royal Academy of Arts, Whitechapel Gallery, and Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Radio

Contributor, BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival 2019, Free Thinking Gets Emotional, Sage Gateshead, 29-31 March 2019

• ‘The Emotions of Now’, Sage Gateshead, 29 March 2019, Tx BBC Radio 3, 8 April 2019, 22:00, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040wd
• ‘The Actors’ Guide to the Emotions’, St Mary’s Church, Gateshead, 31 March 2019. Tx BBC Radio 3, 7 April 2019, 18:45, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00041b0

Reviewer, Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4

• 8 February 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000f5zn
• 3 August 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007b0w
• 16 March 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003ch8

Reviewer, Fun Home, Young Vic production, Music by Jeanine Tesori, Book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, directed by Sam Gold, on BBC Radio 3, Free Thinking, hosted by Matthew Sweet, 28 June 2018, 22:00, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7mryz

Theatres and galleries

Chair, post-screening Q&A with performance maker Rosana Cade and filmmaker Claire Nolan, Walking:Holding, Artsadmin, 21 February 2019.

Chair, post-show discussion, National Theatre Courage Everywhere season marking ‘the 100th anniversary of (some) women in the UK gaining the right to vote’, reading of Her Naked Skin by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, directed by Nadia Fall, National Theatre, 17 November 2018, https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/courage-everywhere-her-naked-skin

‘Hearing Children: Mikhail Karikis’ No Ordinary Protest’ and panelist, discussion on exhibition ‘No Ordinary Protest’ by Mikhail Karikis, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 3 November 2018.

Theatre Uncut: Women on Power panel discussion, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 13 August 2018, https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event-detail/1477/theatre-uncut-women-on-power.aspx

‘Feminism and Hierarchy on Stage’, talk with contributions from Lucy Kerbel (director and writer, Tonic Theatre) and me inspired by the production Julie relating to the new adaptation by Polly Stenham of the play Miss Julie (Strindberg), Cottesloe Room, National Theatre, London, 18 July 2018.

Conversation with artist Alicja Rogalska, ‘Alicia Rogalska: Work, Wealth, and Happiness’, Artsadmin, London, 18 April 2018. 

Reading at ‘Imagined Theatre: Visions of the Word on Stage’, from Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage, ed. Daniel Sack, London and New York: Routledge, 2017, Edinburgh International Book Festival, 17 August 2017.

Chair, Provocations in Art: Collecting Performance, with Brian Catling, RA, Catherine Wood (Tate), and Pablo Bronstein; Royal Academy of Arts, 7 July 2017. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/collecting-performance [accessed 22 May 2017].

‘Body Politics’, lunchtime talk responding to Marc Quinn: Drawn from Life, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 28 March-23 September 2017, http://www.soane.org/features/marc-quinn-exhibition-open-march-2017, http://www.soane.org/whats-on/talks/lunchtime-talk-body-politics, 7 June 2017; livestream https://www.facebook.com/SirJohnSoanesMuseum/videos/10155369938229512/

Discussant, ‘How Has Caryl Chuchill’s Work and Practice Evolved?’, with Dan Rebellato and Max Stafford-Clark, following showing of Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker in a production created by Gruff, produced by Rift, Styx, London, 29 March 2017.

‘New Technologies, Identities, and Performance’, and Chair of discussion with speakers Matt Adams from Blast Theory and graphic designer Neville Brody, Re-making the World: Experiences from Design and Performance, Tate Modern, 27 Feb. 2017, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/talk/remaking-world-experiences-design-and-performance [accessed 6 February 2017].

Discussant, Urban Salon co-organised by Professor Loretta Lees, on #Haters by Emilia Teglia, produced by Odd Eyes Theatre, Bloomsbury Theatre, University College London, 11 Feb. 2017. Available on SoundCloud, https://soundcloud.com/uclurbanlab/haters-post-show-discussion

Discussion leader and chair with Sara Sassanelli, ‘Gender, Action and Abstract Expressionism’, Royal Academy of Arts, special event coinciding with major Abstract Expressionism exhibition, London, 24 Nov. 2016, https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/gender-action-abstract-expressionism-roundtable

Summer Exhibition Edit, Jen Harvie, Royal Academy, 27 July 2016. By invitation. I selected and talked through five works in the exhibition of over 1200 works. Event access free to ticket holders; participation limited by the number of available earphone sets (50). https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/summer-exhibition-edit-1

Presentation with Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw at Cocktail Discussion and Celebration for The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, co-eds, Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, 2015, as part of LADA’s Just Like a Woman events, Chelsea Theatre, London, 13 November, 2015.

Presentation with Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw, and Lisa Duggan at Cocktail Discussion and Celebration for The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver, co-eds, Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver, 2015, as part of LADA’s Just Like a Woman events, Abrons Arts Centre, New York, 23 October, 2015.

Discussion leader and chair, ‘Performance of the Artist: Ai Weiwei Roundtable’, Royal Academy of Arts, special event coinciding with major Ai Weiwei retrospective, London, 17 October, 2015.

‘The Arts are Not Value Free: What ARE Arts’ Values? And Our Own?’, Take the Money and Run?: Ethics and Funding, organised by Live Art Development Agency, Artsadmin and Home Live Art, curated by Jane Trowell of Platform, Toynbee Studios, 29 Jan. 2015. Partially viewable on Platform, Take the Money and Run? Ethics, Funding and Art, posted 12 March, 2015, second video, 19:12-20:43, http://platformlondon.org/p-multimedia/take-the-money-and-run-ethics-funding-and-art/

Panel Chair, ‘On Publicness’, with speakers including artist Santiago Sierra, theorist Chantal Mouffe, curator Catherine Wood and writer Claire Tancons; BMW Tate Live 2014 Talks Programme, Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium, 29 September, 2014.

‘The Pleasures, Perils and Future of Immersive Theatre’, invited expert speaker in The Salon Project, Untitled Projects, Barbican Theatre, London, 5 April 2013.

Director in Silver Action by Suzanne Lacy, Tate Modern, 3 February, 2013.

Keynote introduction to Robert Lepage at Making Theatre, followed by workshop on the RSVP Cycles, presented by Northern Stage and Culture Lab, Newcastle, February 2007.

Invited Panel Chair, Necessary Journeys, symposium at Tate Modern organised by Arts Council England in association with the BFI and Tate Modern, November 2005. 

Podcast

In February 2017, I launched my podcast Stage Left with Jen Harvie, produced by audio producer Debbie Kilbride and available on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/stage_left) and other providers, including the online theatre magazine, Exeunt Magazine (http://exeuntmagazine.com/category/podcast/). The project has received funding from QMUL School of English and Drama’s Strategic Research initiative (2017) and QMUL Humanities and Social Sciences’ Strategic Impact Fund (2017).

• Episode 1: Sh!t Theatre (Rebecca Fuller and Louise Mothersole), released 3 February 2017
• Episode 2: Lucy McCormick on Triple Threat; released 17 March 2017
• Episode 3: Rosana Cade and Nic Green on Cock and Bull; released 24 April 2017
• Episode 4: Scottee; released 16 May 2017
• Episode 5: Split Britches – Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver; released 30 June 2017
• Episode 6: Selina Thompson on Salt; released 11 August 2017
• Episode 7: Reverend Billy; released 28 October 2017
• Episode 8: Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill (Cade & MacAskill) on MOOT MOOT; released 8 August 2019
• Episode 9: Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens of Breach Theatre on It’s True, It’s True, It’s True; released 16 August 2019

Some other online media

‘Neoliberalism, Theatre, and Performance’, video online on Digital Theatre (2019), 4 x 45 | Theatre and Performance in a Neoliberal Age, ed. Andy Lavender, London: Digital Theatre and Routledge, forthcoming 2020, http://www.digitaltheatre.com 

Interviewer of Lois Weaver and of Bobby Baker, Digital Theatre, http://www.digitaltheatre.com/; released 2018

Jen Harvie and Johanna Linsley, ‘Civic Inquiry: Interview with Jen Harvie’, Contemporary Theatre Review online, ‘Interventions’ section, December 2017, https://www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2017/12/

Interview with Sepi Roshan, ‘The Privileged World of Arts and Culture’, Astute Radio, 16 August 2016, http://www.astute-radio.com/the-privileged-world-of-arts-and-culture/

Dave O’Brien and Jen Harvie, podcast interview on Fair Play on the New Books Network, 9 February, 2015.

Select print publication 

‘Art and Activism: Can It Change the World?’, blog post on Royal Academy of Arts online, coinciding with Ai Weiwei exhibition, https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/ai-weiwei-can-art-change-the-world 21 October, 2015 [accessed 21 October 2015].

‘The Vote: Fictional Polling Station Provides Comic Relief but Is a Missed Opportunity’, review of The Vote, created by James Graham and Josie Rourke, written by Graham, directed by Rourke, Donmar Warehouse 24 April-7 May 2015, tx on More4 at 20:20 on 7 May, 2015, The Conversation, 8 May 2015, http://theconversation.com/the-vote-fictional-polling-station-provides-comic-relief-but-is-a-missed-opportunity-41481

‘Feminist Writing Is Essential’, Contemporary Theatre Review online, ‘Interventions’ section, subsection ‘Editing Ourselves into History: A Live Art and Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon’, February 2015, http://www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2015/editing-ourselves-into-history/ [accessed 13 February 2015].

Talks, Keynotes, and Conference Contributions (selected)

‘Genderqueering Time, Ageing, and Relationships with Split Britches’, Pyschosocial Studies Research Seminar, Birkbeck, University of London, 27 January 2020.

‘Genderqueering Time, Ageing, and Relationships with Split Britches’, British Academy Conference on Narratives of Old Age and Gender, convenors Dr Siân Adiseshiah (Loughborough University), Dr Amy Culley (University of Lincoln) and Dr Jonathon Shears (Keele University), Carlton House Terrace, 12-13 September 2019 

‘Women and Work in Theatre and Performance’, Birkbeck Bloomsbury Research Seminar, Department of English and Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London, 29 November 2018.

‘Collaboration, Leadership, and Democracy’, Collaboration in Theatre: A One-Day Symposium, University of Oxford, Supported by TORCH Theatre & Performance network, 19 October 2018.

‘Mitigating Risk for Artists: How to Make Arts Careers Inviting and Sustainably Viable’, invited participant, AHRC-funded Incubate/Propagate Network: Towards Alternative Models for Artist Development in Theatre and Performance, PI Elizabeth Tomlin, University of Glasgow; Workshop 1: Questions of ‘Risk’, University of Leeds, 21 September 2018. 

‘Sexual Harassment, Fear, and Other Feelings’, Keynote, Borderlines VI: Performing Across the Frontiers of Fear, the sixth annual interdisciplinary conference on performance hosted by De Montfort University's Drama Research Group and Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance (CIRID), De Montford University, 21 June 2018.

With Lois Weaver, ‘A Call and Response on Performing Anxieties and Desires’, Cambridge University English Faculty 20^th and 21^st Century Seminar, 5 June 2018.

‘Bodies, Affects, and Discussion in Situated Urban Performance Practices’, The City: Situated Practices in the Humanities, for MAs in Curating Contemporary Art, Critical Writing for Art, and History of Design, Royal College of Art, London, 12 February 2018.

‘Designing Resistance to Adversarial Ageism in Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone and Split Britches’ Ruff’, Victoria and Albert Museum/Royal College of Art History of Design programme, 25 January 2018.

’Performance, Gender and Leadership’, international invited speaker at Feminist Storytelling Working Group, National University of Ireland, Galway, 17 January 2018

‘Boom! Adversarial Ageism, Chrononormativity, and the Anthropocene in Split Britches’ Ruff and Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone’, Quorum, Queen Mary University of London, autumn 2017.

‘Adversarial Ageism, Chrononormativity, and the Anthropocene in Split Britches’ Ruff and Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone‘, invited keynote, II Congreso Internacional de Jóvenes Investigadores en Estudios Teatrales (CIJIET; 2^nd International Conference of Young Researchers on Theatre Studies), University of Murcia, Spain, 25-27 October, 2017.

‘Art, Performance and the Housing Crisis’, Research Seminar Series, Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading, 4 May 2017.

‘Housing Crisis’, invited plenary address, Performance Art in the Public Sphere, University of Lisbon and Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 10 April 2017.

‘Women’s Friendships’, Performing Care Symposium, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in partnership with the University of Manchester, London, 15 December 2016.

'Immersive Theatre, Feminism, Violence, and Care', Commit Yourself! Strategies of Staging Spectators in Immersive Theater, International Conference of the research project ‘Reenacting Emotions: Strategies and Politics of Immersive Theater’ within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center ‘Affective Societies’; in cooperation with Berliner Festspiele, Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Theater Studies and Martin‐Gropius‐Bau, Berlin, 18-19 November 2016.

‘Caryl Churchill, Attending to Ageing’, British Theatre in the 21st Century: New Texts, New Stages, New Identities, New Worlds, Université Paris-Sorbonne in collaboration with Royal Holloway, University of London, 13-15 October 2016.

‘The Housing Crisis Is a Social Crisis’, keynote presentation, In Athens’ Shadow? Radical Cultural Responses to Crisis in Urban Democracy, Tate Liverpool/Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, 8 October 2016.

‘Neoliberal Capitalism, Feminist Performance and Feminist Criticism; or, What Happened When the Women Performers of Generation Rent Got Angry’, Plenary presentation, American Society for Theater Research (ASTR), ‘Debating the Stakes in Theatre and Performance Scholarship’, Portland, OR, USA, 4-8 November, 2015.

‘Artists Are the Avant-garde Against Gentrification’, ‘LATEWI: Look at the (E)state We’re In’ symposium, ‘Art and Gentrification. Do artists create great adverts for property developers?’ panel, University of the Arts London: Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon; Peckham Platform; Live Art Development Agency; London, 28-29 May, 2015.

‘Artists in the Neoliberal Creative Economy; Or, Is Creative Work Bad Work?’, invited keynote at 'Creativity: Method or Madness', University of Glasgow, College of Arts 4th International Post-Graduate Conference, 26-27 May 2015.

‘Housing, Participation, Art, and Performance’, invited keynote at ‘Cultural Participation in Place’, Geography and Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London, 12 May 2015.

‘Housing, Gentrification, Art, Performance, and Cultural Materialism’, Queen’s University Belfast, 7 May 2015.

‘The Case for Cultural Materialism: Art, Performance, Housing and Gentrification’, in series General Theory Programme: Where Theory Belongs, University of the Arts, London, and the ICA, presented at the ICA, 29 April 2015.

‘Is Dance Work Bad Work?’, invited keynote, ‘Dancing Economies: Currency, Value and Labour’ Conference organised by the Society for Dance Research, in collaboration with Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL) & London Studio Centre, RHUL, Egham, 20 February 2015.

‘The After Party: Montreal, Glasgow, London’, invited keynote roundtable contribution at ‘The Life and Death of the Arts in Cities after Mega-Events’, Simon Fraser University/University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 13-16 August 2014.

‘The National Theatre as Patron’, International Federation for Theatre Research annual conference on ‘Theatre and Stratification’, University of Warwick, 28 July- 1 August 2014.

‘Too Big to Fail?: Arts Monopolies and Alternative Affiliations’, Centre of Performing Arts Development, ‘Performance in Transit’ series, University of East London, 16  June 2014.

 ‘Utopian Potentials in Performance’, on panel ‘Performing the Future Urban: Performing Utopian Visions – Consent or Dissent?’, invited speaker at performaCITY Conference, Basel, Switzerland, 12-14 June 2014. 

‘Affiliations’ or ‘Artistic affiliations across borders and boundaries: Surviving and thriving in the neoliberal market’, Invited Keynote, Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR), ‘Borders Without Boundaries’, 2014 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, May 24-27, 2014.

‘Immersive Theatre, Social Value and Austerity’, Hull University Department of Drama and Music (Drama) Public Research Seminar Series, 1 May, 2013.

‘On Patronage and London’, ‘Participatory Arts, Patronage and the [Post-]Olympics’, University of East London and Birkbeck, University of London, 26 April, 2013. 

‘The “Big Society”, Philanthropy and Elitism’, Panel: ‘”New” Forms of Arts Funding’ (co-organised by me), Subsidy, Patronage and Sponsorship:  Theatre and Performance Culture in Uncertain Times, Victoria and Albert Museum, 19-21 July 2012.

‘Artist/Entrepreneur/Craftsperson’, Performance Studies International (PSi) 18, Performance :: Culture :: Industry, University of Leeds, 27 June-1 July, 2012.

‘Reading as a Woman’, PSi18, Performance :: Culture :: Industry, U. of Leeds, 27 June-1 July, 2012. 

‘Public-private Arts’, Department of Film, Theatre and Television, University of Reading, February, 2012. Invited speaker.

'”Mixed Economies” of Arts Funding’, Keynote presentation, Theatre and Alternative Value – a TaPRA Postgraduate Symposium, Royal Holloway, University of London, Jan. 2012.

‘Theatre Historiography for Better Futures: Materialities, Ideologies and Arts Funding’, Keynote presentation, Archives, Historiography, Politics – Ten Years On – Performance, Memory, Futures, National University of Ireland, Galway, November, 2011.

‘Liveability, Prosperity and Gentrification in the Creative City and its Pop-ups’, American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), Economies of Place and Performance Working Group, Montreal, QC, Nov. 2011.

‘”Social Mobility”: Cultural Policy, Art Practices, Gentrification and Social Housing’, Public Investments seminar series, Performance Research Group, King’s College, London, October, 2011. Invited speaker.

‘Cultural Mobility: Liveability, Prosperity and Gentrification in the Creative City and Its Pop-ups’, Keynote presentation, Cultural Mobility International Workshop, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft, Faculty of Humanities, University of Bern, Switzerland, 12 Sept., 2011.

‘Excellence, Neoliberalism and the Value of the Arts’, Surplus to Requirements? Symposium, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, 3 March, 2011. Invited speaker.

‘Installation Art’s Fantasy’ on panel ‘Contemporary Culture and the Romance of Site’ co-convened by Jen Harvie and Michael McKinnie, PSi 16, Performing Publics, Toronto, June 2010.

‘Reassessing the Value of the Arts’, Cambridge Graduate Drama Centre, 3 March, 2010. Invited speaker. 

‘Reassessing the Value of the Arts’, International Congress on European Theatre, Valencia, 24-26 Feb., 2010. Invited speaker.

‘Public, Space, Tate Modern Turbine Hall’, Geography Department, QMUL, Feb. 2009. Invited speaker.

‘The Bright Lights of the Big City’, Quorum, Drama, QMUL, January 2009. Invited speaker.

‘Theatre & the City Redux’, Theatre, Film & TV Studies, U. of Glasgow, Nov. 2008. Invited speaker.

‘Theatre & the City: Theatre’s Economies, Performance’s Ecologies and the Barbican ’, Central School of Speech and Drama, U of London, January 2008. Invited speaker.

 ‘Post-apocalyptic Picnic: Eliasson’s Weather Project in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall’, PSi13 Happening/Performance/Event, New York, 2007.

 ‘Thinking Difference and Sameness’, Beyond Postmodernism: Performance, Politics, Publics’, Birkbeck College, University of London, September 2005. 

‘Hybridity, Diaspora, Metropolis’, Symposium on intercultural, cross-cultural and post-colonial theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London, May 2005.

‘Performance Affect, Witnessing and Testimony: Michael Landy’s Break Down’, PSi11, Providence, RI, April 2005.

‘Re-imagining the Imperial Metropolis: Steve McQueen’s Caribs’ Leap/Western Deep at the Lumiere Cinema’. Roehampton University, December 2003. Invited speaker.

‘Re-imagining the Metropolis: Artangel’s Commissions’. Royal Holloway, University of London, October 2003. Invited speaker.

‘Globalisation and Democracy at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.’ Identities and Culture in Europe, Mellon Interdisciplinary Seminar Series, University College London. Feb. 2003. Invited speaker. 

‘Brith Gof’s Goddodin: Site-specificity, Location and Meaning.’ ASTR. Philadelphia. November 2002. 

‘Re-visiting the Courthouse to Remember Belfast: Memory, Site, Identity, and Tinderbox Theatre Company’s convictions.’ International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR).  Amsterdam.  July 2002.

Performance

I have contributed to a variety of projects:

• as an invited speaker to Untitled Projects' The Salon Project, a performance at the Barbican which recreated the exclusive meetings at the heart of what was French society‘s golden age – an era of change, excess and inquiry (5 April 2013).
• as a director of conversation at the table of major feminist activists at Suzanne Lacy’s Silver Action in the Tanks at London’s Tate Modern in February 2013.