Alba Knijff Massip is a PhD candidate in contemporary British theatre in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and English Studies at the University of Barcelona.
Alba holds an MA of Science by Research in Critical Theory from the University of Edinburgh (2020; Distinction) and a BA in Modern Languages (English and German) from the University of Barcelona (2019).
Her research focuses on the intersections between Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of difference and contemporary feminisms in twenty-first century British theatre paying particular attention to the axes of gender, materiality and ontology. Her master’s dissertation consisted in an affirmative reading of the disintegration of dramatic character in Sarah Kane’s Crave (1998) through the lens of Deleuze’s ontology of difference and repetition. It explored the ways in which the play’s absence of personological character constitutes a critique of modern ontotheological conceptions of the subject –mainly conceived as essential, identical, and static– and sets the ground for new ways of becoming beyond subjectivity and mimetic representation.
She is currently research assistant and co-investigator for “Gender, Affect and Care in Twenty-First Century British Theatre,” a three-year research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-126448NA-I00).
Contemporary British Theatre
2024: “El teatre d’Alice Birch: una dramatúrgia de la llacuna”, (Pausa.) Quadern de teatre contemporani, https://www.revistapausa.cat/teatre-alice-birch-dramaturgia-llacuna/.
2023: “Structural Undecidability and the Logic of the Specter in Bertolt Brecht’s Drums in the Night”, The Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch 48 , pp. 197 – 216.
2021: “The Litigious Scene of Emancipation: A Political Analysis of Dissent in Mouthpiece (2018), by Kieran Hurley”, Estudis Escènics 46, pp. 595-605.
Contemporary British Theatre
2024: with Oriol López-Esteve, “Caring for the Wound: Materialities and Temporalities of Trauma in Alice Birch and Hélène Cixous”, paper presented at the IX International Conference of Young Researchers in Theatre Studies (CIJIET) and the II Teatrales Conference, co-organised by Asociación de Investigación en Estudios Teatrales and the Department of English Studies, Universitat d’Alacant, 13-15 November.
2024: “Staging the Incorporeal: The Shell and the Wound in Alice Birch’s Little Light”, paper presented at the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) Annual Conference in the Theatre, Performance and Philosophy Working Group, Northumbria University, 4-6 September.
2023: “The Passion of Difference: Feminist Mappings of Deleuze’s Ontology of the Caesura”, paper presented at the 15th international Deleuze and Guattari Studies Conference “Space, Control, Resistance”, co-organised by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory and the Faculty of Media and Communications of the University of Belgrade and the University of Plymouth, Belgrade, 10-12 July.
2021: “Ontology and Differential Becomings in Alice Birch’s Anatomy of a Suicide”, paper presented at the 8th Thesis Workshop of the PhD Programme Construction and Representation of Cultural Identities, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 1 December.
Other
2022: with Francesc Massip, “With the Five Senses: Spectacular Devices for Engaging the Audience in the Middle Ages”, paper presented (by invitation) at the international conference “The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies and Rituals”, organised by the ERC Project “Sens-Art”, University of Padova, 21-23 September.
Contemporary British Theatre
2024: attendance at the international conference “2nd Critical Emancipations Conference: The Production of Difference”, organised by the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, 22 – 25 May.
2024: attendance at the conference “Subversió, celebritat i autorialitat femenina al Paral·lel del tombant de segle XIX-XX”, organised by the research group ESPCTRA, Institut del Teatre, 10 May.
2023: attendance at the seminar “Conjugating the Present: Words Inherited from Hannah Arendt”, co-organised by Seminari de Filosofia i Gènere – ADHUC Centre de Recerca Teoria, Gènere i Sexualitat, the CCCB and the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs, 30 November – 1 December [https://www.cccb.org/en/activities/file/conjugating-the-present/243081].
2023: attendance at the international symposium “Care and/in Twenty-First Century British Theatre” within the research project “Gender, Affect, and Care in Twenty-First Century British Theatre”, organised by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 16-17 November.
2023: attendance at the international conference “Forced Entertainment: Things That Go Through Your Mind When Falling”, coordinated by José Antonio Sánchez and Isabel de Naverán, organised by the Expanded Theatricalities Chair, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 28 September – 1 October [https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/activities/expanded-theatricalities-forced-entertainment].
2023: “Alice Birch’s Anatomy of a Suicide”, Guest Lecture for the undergraduate course “Història i teoria de la literatura dramàtica 4”, Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, 13 March.
2023: Post-show panel on [Blank], by Alice Birch, Dir. Marc Chornet, Teatre Tantarantana, 25 February.
2023: participation in the study day on “Care in/and Twenty-First Century British Theatre” within the research project “Gender, Affect, and Care in Twenty-First Century British Theatre”, organised by Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 24 February.
2023: Chronicle of the press conference for [Blank], by Alice Birch, Dir. Marc Chornet and Roberto Romei, presented at the British Council and published in Recomana.cat, 2 February, [https://recomana.cat/recomanaccions/a-la-cuina/blank].
2022 – 2023: participation in the seminar “A peu d’escenari”, co-organised by the MA programme Construction and Representation of Cultural Identities (CRIC) of the University of Barcelona and the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona Research Group (CBTBarcelona) in collaboration with Fundació Teatre Lliure, 18 October – 1 June, [https://www.teatrelliure.com/en/espailliure/a_peu_descenari_ub].
2022: attendance at the course “Hannah Arendt: Between Thinking and Action”, coordinated by Fina Birulés and À. Lorena Fuster, organised by Institut d’Humanitats, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, 12 January – 16 February [https://www.ub.edu/adhuc/en/cursos/hannah-arendt-between-thinking-and-action].
2021: attendance at the research seminar “Sexual Difference: A Practical Ontology?”, coordinated by Teresa Hoogeveen, Andrea Ugalde and Alina Mierlus, co-organised by Seminari Filosofia i Gènere; ADHUC – Centre de Recerca Teoria, Gènere, Sexualitat); GRC Creació i Pensament de les dones (2017 SGR 588); Càtedra UNESCO Dones, desenvolupament i cultures, 7 October – 15 December [https://www.ub.edu/seminarifilosofiagenere/activitats/diferencia-sexual-una-ontologia-practica/].
2020 – 2021: participation in the postgraduate research seminar “Scenes of Difference”, coordinated by Oriol López Esteve and Alba Palau Centelles, co-organised by the MA programme Construction and Representation of Cultural Identities and ADHUC – Centre de Recerca Teoria, Gènere, Sexualitat, Universitat de Barcelona, 13 November – 29 January [https://www.ub.edu/cric/en/news/scenes-difference].
2020: attendance at the international conference “The New Wave of British Women Playwrights: Experimenting with Forms”, Sorbonne University, Paris, 11-12 December [online].
2019 – 2020: Editorial board member of Forum: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts, University of Edinburgh, September – March.
2019: attendance at the research seminar “The Drama of Ideas: Beckett and the Question of Philosophy” given by Martin Puchner (U. Harvard), co-organised by Grup de Recerca en Estudis Literaris Globals (GlobaLS), U. Oberta de Catalunya, and Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universtitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 5 April.