Staff Profile:Professor Anna McMullan
- Name:
- Professor Anna McMullan
- Job Title:
- Professor
- Responsibilities:
- Director of Research for Film, Theatre and Television
- Principal Investigator for the AHRC Staging Beckett project
- Co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation
- Co-ordinator of the Faculty Beckett Research Priority Theme
- Areas of Interest:
My main research area is the drama of Samuel Beckett, on which I have published two monographs (Theatre on Trial: the later drama of Samuel Beckett and Performing Embodiment in Samuel Beckett's Drama), a co-edited volume (Reflections on Beckett), and many essays. I am Principal Investigator on an AHRC-funded project which is exploring the impact of productions of Samuel Beckett's plays on theatre practices and cultures in the UK and Ireland. The project is compiling a searchable database and online research resources including a series of interviews. See Staging Beckett.
I am Co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation, which is a charitable trust, and serves the Beckett community through its publications, conferences and other events. It also supports the research and teaching of Beckett's works at all degree levels and in a variety of departments across the University of Reading.
I have published widely on contemporary Irish theatre and performance, on gender and performance and on theatre and conflict. I have taught at the Universities of Trinity College Dublin, and Queen's University Belfast. I was academic Chair of the Belfast-Sarajevo Initiative for the Creative and Performing Arts (2009-11), a student-led series of creative exchanges between artists of both cities and between students of Drama Studies at Queen's and students from the Academy of Performing Arts, University of Sarajevo.
Postgraduate Supervision:
I welcome enquiries from postgraduate students in any of the above areas of interest. I have supervised postgraduate research theses and practice-as-research doctoral projects in Beckett's drama for stage and screen, live art, cultural exchange between Belfast and Sarajevo, performing memory in post-conflict contexts, and many aspects of contemporary Irish theatre and performance.
- Research groups / Centres:
- Publications:
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YNumber of items: 25.
2018
- McMullan, A. and Saunders, G., eds. (2018) Special issue on staging Beckett and contemporary theatre and performance cultures. Contemporary Theatre Review, 28 (1). Taylor and Francis. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2017.1405393
2017
- McMullan, A., Pattie, D. and Nixon, M., eds. (2017) Staging Beckett at the Margins / Autres scènes beckettiennes. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui, 29 (2). Brill, Leiden.
- McMullan, A. and Pattie, D. (2017) Introduction: staging Beckett at the margins. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui, 29 (2). pp. 227-230. ISSN 0927-3131 doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-02902001
- McMullan, A. (2017) Staging Ireland's Dispossessed: Sarah Jane Scaife's Beckett in the City Project. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui, 29 (2). pp. 361-374. ISSN 0927-3131 doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-02902012
2016
- McMullan, A. (2016) Staging Beckett in Ireland: scenographic remains. In: McTighe, T. and Tucker, D. (eds.) Staging Beckett in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Bloomsbury Methuen, London, pp. 103-119. ISBN 9781474240550
2014
- McMullan, A. and McTighe, T. (2014) Samuel Beckett, the Gate Theatre Dublin, and the contemporary Irish independent theater sector: fragments of performance history. Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies, July. ISSN 2372-2231
- McMullan, A., McTighe, T., Pattie, D. and Tucker, D. (2014) Staging Beckett: constructing histories of performance. Journal of Beckett Studies, 23 (1). pp. 11-33. ISSN 0309-5207 doi: https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.2014.0084
- McMullan, A. (2014) Designing Beckett: Jocelyn Herbert's contribution to Samuel Beckett's theatrical aesthetics. In: Gontarski, S. E. (ed.) The Edinburgh companion to Samuel Beckett and the arts. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 409-422. ISBN 9780748675685
- McMullan, A. (2014) Historical legacies and unhomely cultural memories in Brian Friel’s The home place. Nordic Irish Studies, 13 (1). pp. 189-203. ISSN 1602-124X
2013
- McMullan, A. (2013) Dancing in translation: Irina Brook’s mise en scène of 'Danser à Lughnasa', Jean-Marie Besset’s translation of Brian Friel’s 'Dancing at Lughnasa'. Studies in Theatre & Performance, 33 (2). pp. 211-223. ISSN 2040-0616 doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/stap.33.2.211_1
2012
- McMullan, A. (2012) Samuel Beckett's scenographic collaboration with Jocelyn Herbert. Degrés, 149-150. pp. 1-17. ISSN 0770-8378
2010
- McMullan, A. (2010) Performing embodiment in Samuel Beckett's drama. Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies, 12. Routledge, pp186. ISBN 9780415385985
2009
- McMullan, A. (2009) 'The Home Place': unhomely inheritances. Irish Theatre International, 2 (1). pp. 62-68. ISSN 2009-0870
- McMullan, A. and Wilmer, S. E., eds. (2009) Reflections on Beckett: a centenary celebration. Theater: theory/text/performance. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp256. ISBN 9780472116645
2008
- McMullan, A. (2008) History in tatters: bodies and things in Samuel Beckett’s theatre. Etudes Britanniques Contemporaines, 35. pp. 27-37. ISSN 1168-4917
2007
- McMullan, A. (2007) Beckett’s theatre: embodying alterity. In: Ben-Zvi, L. and Moorjani, A. (eds.) Beckett at 100: Revolving it All. Oxford University Press, pp. 166-176. ISBN 9780195325485
- McMullan, A. (2007) From matron to matrix: gender, authority and (dis)embodiment in Beckett’s Theatre. In: Sihra, M. (ed.) Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation. Performance Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 97-108. ISBN 9780230006478
- McMullan, A. (2007) Mutated bodies: stage performances of Beckett's late prose texts by Mabou Mines (1984) and Gare St. Lazare Players, Ireland (2005). Performance Research, 12 (1). pp. 57-65. ISSN 1469-9990 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1352816070138081
- McMullan, A. (2007) Samuel Beckett’s theatre: liminal subjects and the politics of perception. The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 68 (1/2). pp. 450-464.
2006
- McMullan, A. (2006) Performativity, unruly bodies and gender in Brian Friel’s drama. In: Roche, A. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 142-153. ISBN 9780521853996
2004
- McMullan, A. (2004) Irish/postcolonial Beckett. In: Oppenheim, L. (ed.) Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies. Palgrave Advances. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 89-109. ISBN 9781403903525
2003
- Frost, E. and McMullan, A. (2003) The Blue Angel Beckett on film project : questions of adaptation, aesthetics and audience in filming Beckett’s theatrical canon. In: Ben-Zvi, L. (ed.) Drawing on Beckett : portraits, performances, and cultural contexts. Assaph Books. Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, pp. 215-238. ISBN 9789659062508
- McMullan, A. and Singleton, B., eds. (2003) Special issue of Australasian Drama Studies on Performing Ireland. Australasian Drama Studies.
- McMullan, A. and Leeney, C., eds. (2003) The Theatre of Marina Carr: “before rules was made”. Carysfort Press, Dublin. ISBN 9780953425778
1993
- McMullan, A. (1993) Theatre on trial: the later drama of Samuel Beckett. Routledge, London, pp168. ISBN 9780415052023
Teaching:
- Alternative Forms in Theatre
- Performing Nation
- Samuel Beckett's Theatre
- Representing Conflict on Stage and Screen
- Practical Option: Theatre
- Research Methods (MA)
- Dissertation supervision (BA and MA)
Affiliations:
- Editorial Board member of The Journal of Beckett Studies.
- Editorial Board member of Irish University Review.
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Advisory Editor Anthem Studies in Theatre and Performance.
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Associate Member of CFAC - Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures