Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories: Drag in a Changing Scene Volume 2

Description

Drawing on rich interdisciplinary research that has laced the emerging subject of drag studies as an academic discipline, this book examines how drag performance is a political, socio-cultural practice with a widespread lineage throughout the history of performance. This volume maps the multi-threaded contexts of contemporary practices while rooting them in their fabulous historical past and memory. The book examines drag histories and what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. Featuring work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, this book allows the reader to engage with a range of archival research including camp and history; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; the connections between drag king and queen history; queering pantomime performance; drag and military veterans; Puerto Rican drag performers and historical film.

Mark Edward is a pracademic and Reader in Creative Arts at Edge Hill University, UK. His publications include Mesearch and the Performing Body (2018). Professionally he has worked for Rambert Dance Company and performed with the renowned American performance artist Penny Arcade in her work Bad Reputation (2004) and in Jeremy Goldstein's Truth to Power Cafe (2018). Mark is also the writer and producer of the immersive performance and film installation Council House Movie Star (2012) featuring his drag persona Gale Force. Stephen Farrier is Reader in Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. With Alyson Campbell he has coedited Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (2015) as well as a themed edition of RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance named the 'Gender and Sexuality Issue'.

Drag research has arrived. This volume by Edward and Farrier is a triumphant celebration of the critical, creative and speculative potentials of drag. The authors confidently embrace the complexities of drag and offer an affirmative map of its many forms, politics, and contexts. Future drag scholarship will be indebted to the provocations and case studies captured within these pages: from the 'sequin method' for historiography to queering panto. I am feeling the fantasy. * Rachel Hann, Northumbria University, UK * From its playful title right through to its pantomimic concluding chapter, Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories is an exuberant, informed romp through the history of this most transgressive, protean, and wonderfully queer art form. Editors Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier have done a fabulous job in bringing together a panoply of academics, commentators, practitioners, and activists to cast some important light onto drag's complex and fascinating past. * Emma Rees, University of Chester, UK * This volume of essays makes a valuable and, yes, entertaining contribution to drag histories and herstories (the hairstories are in there, too), bringing a range of perspectives on performance cultures and performers that are illuminating. The sense of fun, passion and energy of so many performers and performance cultures are celebrated, documented and subjected to valuable critique here. -- Professor Anne Pender * Australian Drama Studies *