Performing the Anthropocene : climate change, embodiment, and affect in contemporary theatre
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Literary critics have extensively discussed Anthropocene fiction and (to a lesser degree) poetry, but relatively little attention has been paid so far to the strategies used within contemporary narrative based theatre to tackle the challenges the Anthropocene poses to the human imagination The proposed new geological epoch defined by human impact requires a shift in thinking that decentres human experience and brings non-human scales to the fore. A prominent strand within ecocriticism questions whether linguistic narrative is an appropriate mode for imaginative engagement with the Anthropocene, because it is so closely tied to anthropocentric thinking and human actions and intentions. Theatre seems to face an even bigger challenge than fiction in this regard. Unlike written narrative, performed narrative is dependent not only on human language, but also on human bodies that act out, or at least convey, the story. Starting from these observations, this PhD thesis explores how the embodied nature of theatre can offer opportunities to think through the pressures and challenges of the Anthropocene. It is situated at the intersection of literary studies and theatre studies, and draws on ecocriticism and affect theory as well as narratology and performance theory. The corpus consists of plays that deploy innovative formal structures to capture aspects of this epoch, but that simultaneously explore possible affective responses to the friction between the human and more-than- human scales that characterizes the Anthropocene. Alongside two well- known British plays – Lungs by Duncan Macmillan and Oil by Ella Hickson – the thesis discusses several lesser-known plays: Sila by the Canadian playwright Chantal Bilodeau, KillJoy Quiz by the Brazilian-Belgian writer and performer Luanda Casella, and World without Us and Are we not drawn onward to new erA by the Belgian collective Ontroerend Goed. The aim of this study is twofold: on the one hand, it complements existing literary research on Anthropocene fiction by focusing on theatre instead of novels. On the other hand, it seeks to shed light on how intimate ties to human experience might not be a liability but an asset for narrative modes insofar as they can help bridge the scalar gap between the personal and the geological. The mismatch between scales can easily lead to paralysing affects like climate denial, cynicism, or apathy. This thesis explores how theatre, not despite but because of its embodied nature, might provide unique opportunities to evoke and explore alternative affects like expanded empathy, thoroughgoing irony, or stubborn hope.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.018 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".