Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Migration

Yana Meerzon is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of three books, most recently Performance, Subjectivity, Cosmopolitanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Yana has also served as co-editor on 7 edited collections, including Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)S. E. Wilmer is Professor Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and has written or edited 20 books. He co-edited ‘Theatre and Statelessness in Europe’ for Critical Stages in 2016. His latest books are Performing Statelessness in Europe (2018) and Life in the Posthuman Condition (2023).

“The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Migration is a topical collection that references a wealth of critical perspectives on different aspects of migration in both historical and contemporary contexts. While primarily intended for theatre and performance readership, it would certainly be of interest to scholars, educators, and students across arts and humanities and especially cultural and migration studies.” (Szabolcs Musca, European Journal of Theatre and Performance, Issue 8, December, 2024) “This handbook is a timely intervention in theatre and performance studies. This large volume of sixty chapters broadly covers themes such as refugees, migrants, exile, globalization and cosmopolitanism. … With such contrasting contributions, this handbook will appeal to scholars in anthropology, history, sociology, environmental or postcolonial studies, along with theatre and performance scholars and artists looking for inspiration. It is an essential publication addressing migration through theatre and performance as one of the most pressing challenges of our time.” (Beri Juraić, Theatre Research International, Vol. 49 (2), July, 2024)

• 1.  Theatre and Migration: Defining the Field.- Section One: Theatre and Migration: Themes and Concepts.- 2. The Eternal Immigrant and the Aesthetics of Solidarity.- 3. ‘A Real State of Exception’: Walter Benjamin and the Paradox of Theatrical Representation.- 4. Theatre as Refrain: Representations of Departure from the Terezín/Theresienstadt Ghetto. 5. Refugees and the Right to Have Rights.- 6. Postmigrant Theatre and its Impact on Contemporary German Theatre.- 7. Interculturalism and Migration in Performance: From Distant Otherness to the Precarity of Proximity.- 8. Cosmopolitanism: The Troublesome Offset of Global Migration.-9. Indigenous Migrations: Performance, Urbanization and Survivance in Native North America.- 10. Migratory Blackness in Leave Taking and Elmina’s Kitchen.- 11. ‘What needs to happen so we may remain at home?’: Climate Migration and Performance.- 12. Theatre’s Digital Migration, by Matthew Causey.- Section Two: Early Representations of Migration.- 13. Theatre and Migration in Gilgamesh.- 14. Migration and Ancient Indian Theatre.- 15. Fated Arrivals: Greek Tragedy and Migration.- 16. Migration in Greek and Roman Comedy.-17. Migrating Souls and Witnessing Travellers in the Dramaturgy of Nō Theatre.- 18. The Things She Carried: The Vertical Migrations of Lady Rokujō in Japanese Theatre.-19. The Stranger’s Case: Exile in Shakespeare.- 20. The ‘English Comedy’ in Early Modern Europe: Migration, Emigration, Integration.- 21. Migrations and Cultural Navigations on Early-Modern Italian Stages.- Section Three: Migration and Nationalism.- 22. Immigration and Family Life on the Early Twentieth-Century Argentine Stage.- 23. Sonless Mothers and Motherless Sons, or How Has Polishness Haunted Polish Theatre Artists in Exile?.- 24. All Our Migrants: Place and Displacement on the Israeli Stage.- 25. Shylock is Me: AryehElias as an Immigrant Jewish-Iraqi Actor in the Israeli Theatre.- 26. Emerging, Staying or Leaving: ‘Immigrant’ Theatre in Canada.- 27. Migrant Artists and Precarious Labour in Contemporary Russian Theatre.- 28. Chicano Theatre and (Im)migration: La víctima.- 29. Staging War at the Home Depot: Yoshua Okón’s Octopus and the Shadow Economy of Migrant Labour.- 30. From Emigrant to Migrant Nation: Reckoning with Irish Historical Duty.- 31. Dwelling in Multiple Languages: The Impossible Journeys Home in the Work of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Akram Khan.- Section Four: Migration, Colonialism and Forced Displacement.- 32. The Theatre of Displacement and Migration in Southern Africa: Zimbabwe and South Africa in Focus.- 33. From the Yoruba Travelling Theatre to the Nobel Prize in Literature: Nigerian Theatre in Motion.- 34. Migratory Subjectivities and African Diasporic Theatre: Race, Gender and Nation.- 35. Immobile Relegations and Exiles:Creation and Migration in French Theatre Between 1980 and 2020.- 36. Storying Home:  Retracing the Trail of Tears to Restore Ekvnvcakv.- 37. Diasporic Trauma, Nativized Innovation, and Techno-Intercultural Predicament: The Story of Jingju in Taiwan.- 38. Our Life Together: War, Migration, and Family Drama in Korean American Theatre.- 39. Chronicles of Refugees Foretold, by Hala Khamis Nassar.- 40. Ukrainian Theatre in Migration: Military Anthropology Perspective.- Section Five: Refugees.- 41. Spaces and Memories of Migration in Twenty-First Century Greek Theatre:  Station Athens’ I Left (E_Φυγα).- 42. Troubled Waters: The Representation of Refugees in Maltese Theatre.- 43. Staging Borders: Immigration Drama in Spain, from the 1990s to the Present.- 44. Performance and Asylum Seekers in Australia (2000-2020).- 45. Ramadram: Refugee Struggles, Empowerment and Institutional Openings in German Theatre.- 46. To Come Between: Refugees at Sea, from Representation to Direct Action.- 47. Theatre, Migration, and Activism: The Work of Good Chance Theatre.- 48. Theatre and Migration in the Balkans: The Death of Asylum in Žiga Divjak’s The Game.- 49. Theatre of the Syrian Diaspora.- 50. The Finnish National Theatre, Refugees, and Equality.- Section Six: Itinerancy, Traveling and Transnationalism.- 51. Transnationality: Intercultural Dialogues, Encounters, and the Theatres of Curiosity.- 52. German Theatre and August von Kotzebue’s Theatrical Success and Pitfalls in Russia.- 53. The Itinerant Puppet.- 54. Fin-de-siècle Black Minstrelsy, Itinerancy, and the Anglophone Imperial Circuit.- 55. Actor Migration to and from Britain in the Nineteenth Century.- 56. Migration and Marathi Theatre in Colonial India, 1850-1900.- 57. The Dybbuk:  Wandering Souls of the Vilna Troupe and Habimah Theatre.- 58. Indian Circus: A Melting Pot of Migrant Artists,Performativity, and Race.- 59. Contemporary (Post-)Migrant Theatre in Belgium and the Migratory Aesthetics of Milo Rau’s Theatre of the Real.- 60. Belarus Free Theatre: Political Theatre in Exile.