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Chapter 15 - Methodologies in Circus Scholarship

from Part IV - Circus Studies Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

Gillian Arrighi
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle, New South Wales
Jim Davis
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

This chapter provides an overview and exploration of the methodological approaches employed by circus scholars in three edited collections published between 2016 and 2018. Reflecting the fact that the majority of published circus scholars have backgrounds in the humanities and social sciences, the chapters and articles in these collections largely employ three methodological approaches, which currently dominate circus research: history/historiography, performance analysis, and ethnography. While much circus research relies on archival sources, scholars working on contemporary circus – many of whom started their careers as circus artists – supplement this research with viewing of live performances and the use of ethnographic tools such as interviews and their own professional experience in their data collection. Of emerging importance is the use of social science methodologies such as interviews, surveys, and demographic data to explore and critique circus education, institutions, and spectatorship. Heeding Halberstam and Nyong’o’s call for a ‘rewilding of theory’ (2018), we further take account of emerging circus scholarship which insists on circus as a live, experiential set of practices and on the viability of methods which centre embodiment and note the centering of ethics in scholars’ exploration of circus training and performances, and in circus research itself.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Damkjaer, Camilla. Homemade Academic Circus: Idiosyncratically Embodied Explorations into Artistic Research and Circus Performance. Winchester: Iff Books, 2016.Google Scholar
Fricker, Karen, and Malouin, Hayley, eds. ‘Circus and Its Others.’ Special issue, Performance Matters 4, no. 1–2 (2018).Google Scholar
Guest, Kristen, and Mattfield, Monica, eds. Equestrian Cultures: Horses, Human Society, and the Discourse of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.Google Scholar
Harrison, Martha. ‘Gender Representation in Circus Arts: A Case Study.’ Theatre, Dance, and Performance Training 10, no. 1 (2019): 2137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heitmann, Annegret. ‘Nordic Modernists in the Circus: On the Aesthetic Reflection of a Transcultural Institution.’ Humanities 7, no. 4 (2018): 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kralj, Ivan, ed. Žene & Cirkus (Women and Circus). Zagreb: Mala Performeska Scena, 2011.Google Scholar
Leroux, Louis Patrick, and Batson, Charles R. Cirque Global: Québec’s Expanding Circus Boundaries. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Jane. Canadian Carnival Freaks and the Extraordinary Body: 1900–1970s. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Springhall, John. The Genesis of Mass Culture: Show Business Live in America, 1840 to 1940. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tait, Peta, and Lavers, Katie, eds. The Routledge Circus Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar

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