Tom Postlewait
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Tom Postlewait Thomas Postlewait, Professor of
theatre history, has been on research leave during the academic
year 2003-04. In December his new book, Theatricality (Cambridge
University Press), co-edited with Tracy C. Davis, Northwestern University,
was published. He also published two essays: “The Criteria
for Evidence: Anecdotes in Shakespearean Biography, 1709-2000”
in Theorizing Practice: Redefining Theatre History (Palgrave
McMillan), edited by W. B. Worthen & Peter Holland, and “Constructing
Events in Theatre History: A Matter of Credibility” in The
Theatrical Event (Rodopi), edited by Vicky Ann Cremona et al.
While on leave, he has been finishing the revisions for his book,
An Introduction to Theatre Historiography, which will be
published next year. He is also editing The Correspondence of
Bernard Shaw and William Archer, which will be published by
University of Toronto Press as part of a series of books on Shaw’s
correspondence. He continues to serve as the editor of the book
series, “Studies in Theatre History and Culture,” published
by University of Iowa Press. [Over thirty books have been published
in this series, including, most recently, Bruce McConachie’s
American Theatre in the Culture of the Cold War: Producing and
Contesting Containment, 1947-1962. Four new books by American
and European scholars will be out this coming autumn and spring.]
In September 2003 he was one of twelve scholars
invited to a conference at Brown University in honor of the career
and retirement of Don Wilmeth. In November he attended the annual
meeting of the American Society for Theatre Research in Durham,
NC, where he served on two committees: the program committee for
the conference and the committee that selects candidates to run
for the Executive Committee. He also chaired the “State of
the Profession” panel, featuring talks by Charlotte Canning,
Jill Dolan, Harry Elam, Bruce McConachie, and Michal Kobialka. For
ASTR he has also chaired the committee that led the national campaign
for the inclusion of the field of theatre studies in the next evaluation
of doctoral programs in the United States by the National Research
Council. His testimony before the NRC in Washington, DC was successful,
for all doctoral programs in theatre, dance, and performance studies
will be assessed next year. In March 2004 he served as the respondent
to approximately thirty-five theatre history papers at the Mid-America
Theatre Conference in Chicago. In May and June he was traveling:
he was invited to lecture at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity
College, Dublin, Ireland. He also delivered two talks at Helsinki
University in Finland. He then went to St. Petersburg, Russia for
the meeting of the International Federation for Theatre Research,
where he participated in the Historiography Working Group.
In December 2003 he received
a “Senior Research Fellowship” from the National Endowment
for the Humanities. Then in January 2004 he received a research
seed grant from the OSU Colleges of the Arts and the Humanities.
These two research grants support his new projects on microhistory.
