My thesis is now online!

[My workspace in earlier days - AF]

So, it's late. And you can't sleep due to the heat, the snoring emanating from the prone form beside you, the pangs of a guilty conscience, or a combination of all three.* But wait, help is now only a mouse click away! That's right, my PhD thesis, entitled Backstage Space: The Place of the Performer, is now available online! And you can find it HERE.

So, to whet your appetites, here's a classic section from page 2 where I contend that there is a 'significant lacuna' stemming from the lack of focus (to date) on backstage space, and skillfully set the scene for the 250-odd pages of closely argued text that follows. Enjoy!

In recent decades, the humanities and social sciences “have been experiencing an unprecedented spatial turn.”1 This turn has influenced a “move towards more culturally and geographically nuanced work, sensitive to difference and specificity, and thus to the contingencies of event and locale.”2 Within the associated academic fields of Theatre Studies and Performance Studies this has been manifest through increased attention being directed to the function of space and place in the production and reception of theatrical performance, both that which occurs in theatre buildings and that which is site-specific. Despite this, little sustained attention has been directed towards backstage space and the use of such space by performers. It is my contention that this represents a significant lacuna in our knowledge of the complex interrelations between performers, the performances they create, and the spaces and places in which they create such performances.

1 Edward Soja, "Thirdspace: Expanding the Scope of the Geographical Imagination," in Human Geography Today, ed. Doreen Massey, John Allen, and Philip Sarre (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), 261.
2 Denis Cosgrove, "Landscape and Landschaft," German Historical Institute Bulletin, no. 35 (2004): 57.

*Ie: you went to bed and left the heater running in the midst of summer, thereby exacerbating your partner's sleep apnea and resulting in the midnight realisation that you have foolishly contributed to the further warming of the globe.