Letter to a Dead Playwright: Daily Grind, Vicki Reynolds, and Archive Fever
’Nothing is less reliable, nothing is less clear today than the word “archive”,’ observed Jacques Derrida in his book Archive Fever: a Freudian Impression (1996). This paper reflects on the unsettling process of establishing (or commencing) an archive for the Melbourne Workers Theatre, to form part of the AusStage digital archive which records information on live performance in Australia. Glenn D'Cruz's paper juxtaposes two disparate but connected registers of writing: an open letter to a deceased Australian playwright, Vicki Reynolds, and a critical reflection on the politics of the archive with reference to Derrida's account of archive fever, which he characterizes as an ‘irrepressible desire to return to the origin, a homesickness, a nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of absolute commencement’. Using Derrida's commentary on questions of memory, authority, inscription, hauntology, and heritage to identify some of the philosophical and ethical aporias he encountered while working on the project, D’Cruz pays particular attention to what Derrida calls the spectral structure of the archive, and stages a conversation with the ghosts that haunt the digitized Melbourne Workers Theatre documents. He also unpacks the logic of Derrida's so-called messianic account of the archive, which ‘opens out of the future’, thereby affirming the future-to-come, and unsettling the normative notion of the archive as a repository for what has passed. Glenn D’Cruz teaches at Deakin University, Australia. He is the author of Midnight's Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Post/Colonial Literature (Peter Lang, 2006) and editor of Class Act: Melbourne Workers Theatre 1987–2007 (Vulgar Press, 2007).
Data Models for Theatre Research: People, Places, and Performance
Abstract: How are theatre scholars sharing information about people, places, and performance? This essay considers the current prospects for collaborative research on theatre production within the context of recent developments in the digital humanities. It identifies convergence in the way that twelve projects around the world are collecting and organizing information about performance: Abbey Theatre Archives Performance Database (Ireland); AusStage (Australia); Hamm Archives, Brooklyn Academy of Music (US); Global Performing Arts Database (US, Singapore, Japan, Russia, China); IbsenStage (Norway); Internet Broadway Database (US); Staging Beckett (England); Scottish Theatre Archive (Scotland); TheaterEncyclopedie (Netherlands); Theatre Aotearoa (New Zealand); Theatrescapes (Germany); and Toronto Theatre Database (Canada). The essay derives core descriptions for shared concepts from the data models in use, placing emphasis on practical solutions, while recognizing variations in implementation. In the process it distinguishes four levels of determination for concepts of performance, event, production, and work. Recognizing what has been achieved, the essay contributes to the prospects of sharing data among projects. It concludes by illustrating how visualizing information on performance opens new horizons of significance for theatre research at scales ranging from local activity to global networks.
Experiencing Emergence in Organizations : local interaction and the emergence of global pattern
Examining the experiences of organizational practitioners, this informative book features contributions from experienced leaders, consultants and managers in various organizations, and narrative accounts of the contributors work address key topical questions. Rather than offering descriptions of organizational life, this book provides reflective accounts of real life experiences of researching in organizations, and will be a valuable insight for academics and business school students and practitioners. In considering several key questions in terms of daily experience, the contributors explore the perspective of complex responsive processes, investigate how this assists them to make sense of their experience and analyze how it leads to their development.