On the Edge in Early Modern English Drama – Call For Papers

On the Edge in Early Modern English Drama

Edited by Mark Houlahan and Aidan Norrie

The editors invite proposals for chapters of c.7000 words for an edited collection, On the Edge in Early Modern English Drama. There can be little doubt that early modern English drama has received detailed attention in the existing scholarship. Scholars have long analysed the extant dramatic productions, and the men who authored them. Much of this attention, however, serves to perpetuate a static and heteronormative view of the past. More recently, scholars have engaged in excellent work to spread the scope of this attention, showing that people and concepts often seen as being on the edge of early modern English drama played integral and vital roles. These various roles help us better understand Shakespeare, Marlowe, Middleton, Jonson, and their ilk. The people and ideas that existed on the edge of English drama—both on the stage, and in non-traditional arenas—deserve to be brought into the centre, not to enshrine a new orthodoxy, but to acknowledge and extend the richer sense of playmaking and all its ancillary activities that has emerged over the last decade. This collection thus seeks to bring together the people, ideas, and practices that exist on the edge, and collectively demonstrate their importance and relevance—both to early modern audiences, and to readers and performers today.

Topics for chapters might include (but are not limited to): theatrical spaces outside the theatre; performances outside the London theatres; gender and performance; children, childhood, and child actors; staging ‘otherness’; publication and genre; texts, both extant and lost; civic entertainments; the edges of the canon; or the blurring of the edge.

As this collection is interested in the ‘edge’ of early modern English drama, we do not anticipate including essays on canonical plays and authors who do not in some way demonstrate their engagement with the ‘edge.’

Please send abstracts of c.250 words with a brief biography to both Mark Houlahan (maph@waikato.ac.nz) and Aidan Norrie (aidannorrie@gmail.com) by Friday, 4 August 2017. Accepted authors will be notified by 31 August 2017, and completed essays of a maximum of 8000 words (including notes) will be due by Wednesday, 28 February 2018.