Ariane de Waal is a Lecturer in British Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig.
Ariane studied Drama, Arabic, and English and American Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Hull, and the University of Oklahoma. She holds a PhD from Ruhr University Bochum. She has worked as a Lecturer at the Universities of Bochum, Innsbruck, and Halle-Wittenberg, and she has been a visiting researcher at Queen Mary, University of London, and Harvard University, and a visiting lecturer at the Drama Department of the University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness. Her PhD thesis examined British new writing in response to the ‘war on terror’. It was distinguished with the CDE Award in 2016 and the Wilhelm Hollenberg Prize in 2017. A monograph based on her PhD project was published as Theatre on Terror: Subject Positions in British Drama by De Gruyter in 2017.
Her research focuses on the construction and contestation of gendered, classed, racial, and religious subject positions in British and postcolonial theatre and performance. Ariane has published articles and book chapters on British South Asian theatre, on the performative articulation of whiteness and neoliberal citizenship, and on the intersections of queer studies and ecocriticism with contemporary British drama. She has also co-edited a volume on Birth and Death in British Culture: Liminality, Power, and Performance (Cambridge Scholars, 2012), a special issue on “Bodies on Stage” (Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 2013), and a special issue on “Terror on Tour: Borders, Detours, and Contingencies” (Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 2020). Since 2021, she has been acting as book review editor for the Journal for the Study of British Cultures, the journal of the German Association for the Study of British Cultures (BritCult).
Ariane is a co-investigator for “Gender, Affect and Care in the Twenty-First Century British Theatre” (PID2021-126448NA-I00), a three-year research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the EU European Regional Development Fund (FFI2016-75443).
Ariane is the founder of RAI –Renegade Actors Innsbruck, a theatre company specializing in English-language productions at the University of Innsbruck. Between 2017 and 2019 she directed and adapted or wrote the scripts for four performances: To the Light/Over. A Postmodern Pilgrimage, Mountain Act, Macbeth, and Trojan Barbie.
Contemporary British Theatre
2021: “More Future? Straight Ecologies in British Climate-Change Theatre”, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 9: 1, pp. 43-59.
2020: “Living Suspiciously: Contingent Belonging in British South Asian Theater”, Humanities 9: 3, pp. 1-12.
2020: co-editor with Paul Antick, special issue on “Terror on Tour: Borders, Detours, and Contingencies”, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 16: 2. http://liminalities.net/16-2
2020: with Paul Antick, “By Way of an Introduction”, introduction to the special issue “Terror on Tour: Borders, Detours, and Contingencies”), Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 16: 2, pp. 1-9.
2018: “Neoliberalism, Terror, and the Etiology of Neurotic Citizenship”, A Poetics of Neurosis: Narratives of Normalcy and Disorder in Cultural and Literary Texts. Eds. Elena Furlanetto and Dietmar Meinel. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 95-113.
2017: Theatre on Terror: Subject Positions in British Drama. Berlin: De Gruyter.
2017: “Expel, Exploit, Exfoliate: Taking on Terror in Mark Ravenhill’s Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat”, Finance, Terror, and Science on Stage: Current Public Concerns in 21st-Century British Drama. Eds. Kerstin Frank and Caroline Lusin. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, pp. 59-76.
2016: “‘Do not run on the platforms … if you look a bit foreign’: De/Constructing the Travelling Terrorist Assemblage”, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 12: 5, pp. 1-17.
2015: “Staging Wounded Soldiers: The Affects and Effects of Post-Traumatic Theatre”, Performance Paradigm 11, pp. 16-31.
2014: “(Sub)Versions of the Them/Us Dichotomy in Iraq War Drama”, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 2: 1, pp. 131-144.
2013: co-editor with Anette Pankratz, special issue on “Bodies on Stage”, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 1: 1. https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jcde/1/1/html
2013: with Anette Pankratz, “Introduction: Dissecting Bodies on Stage”, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 1: 1, pp. 1-12.
Other
2024: “Big Other and Big Brother: State Violence, Surveillance, and Censorship in Contemporary Indian English Drama”, Contemporary Indian English Literature. Eds. Cecile Sandten, Indrani Karmakar, and Oliver von Knebel Doeberitz. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, pp. 299-320.
2023: co-editor with Mark Schmitt, special issue on “Becoming Ahuman”, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 30: 2. https://jsbc.winter-verlag.de/issue/JSBC/2023/2
2023: with Mark Schmitt, “Introduction: Towards Ahuman Futures? Cultural Studies for the End of the World”, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 30: 2, pp. 139-157.
2023: with Mark Schmitt, “Ahuman Escape Routes: An Interview with Patricia MacCormack”, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 30: 2, pp. 159-173.
2023: “Exposure, Friction, and ‘Peculiar Feelings’: Victorian Travelling Skin”, Medicine and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, History, and Culture. Eds. Sandra Dinter and Sarah Schäfer-Althaus. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 213-234.
2022: co-editor with Ursula Kluwick, special issue on “Victorian Materialisms”, European Journal of English Studies 26: 1. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/neje20/26/1
2022: with Ursula Kluwick, “Victorian Materialisms: Approaching Nineteenth-Century Matter”, European Journal of English Studies 26: 1, pp. 1-13.
2022: “Slippery Sea Borders: Marine Species, Invasion Metaphors, and Migration across the Mediterranean and the English Channel”, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 29: 1, pp. 101-116.
2020: “Looking Both Ways: Middlemarch, True Skin, and the Dermatological Gaze”, Victorian Network 9, pp. 101-121.
2020: with Felipe Armstrong, “Trans/National Necronarratives: Mourning, Vitality, and Non-reproductivity in Una mujer fantástica”, European Journal of English Studies 24: 1, pp. 52-64.
2019: “‘Anyone Foreign?’ Whiteness, Passing, and Deportability in Brexit Britain”, The Intersections of Whiteness. Eds. Evangelia Kindinger and Mark Schmitt. London: Routledge, pp. 127-145.
2016: “Performing the ‘Ultimate Private Act’ in Public: The Biopolitics of Breastfeeding in London”, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 23: 2, pp. 169-181.
2015: “Letting Dracula Out of the Closet”, Dracula and Philosophy: Dying to Know. Eds. Nicolas Michaud and Janelle Pötzsch. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, pp. 175-185.
2012: co-editor with Anette Pankratz and Claus-Ulrich Viol, Birth and Death in British Culture: Liminality, Power, and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2012: with Claus-Ulrich Viol, “Bio-power in the Societies of Control: Your Essential Guide to Pregnancy and Birth Guides”, Birth and Death in British Culture: Liminality, Power, and Performance. Eds. Anette Pankratz, Claus-Ulrich Viol, and Ariane de Waal. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 139-161.
2012: “The Jew and the City: Containment and Circulation of Religious Otherness in Shakespeare’s Venice and Marlowe’s Malta”, Shakespeare Seminar 10, pp. 29-38.
Contemporary British Theatre
2023: attendance at “Theater & Community: Poetics, Politics, Performances”, 31st Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Erfurt, 8-11 June.
2023: chair of panel “Community, Precarity, Resistance”, at “Theater & Community: Poetics, Politics, Performances”, 31st Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Erfurt, 10 June.
2021: “Doing It for the Kids? Reproductive Futurism and Theatre in the Anthropocene”, paper presented at “Cultures in the Anthropocene”, University of Innsbruck, 2 July [online].
2021: attendance at “Critical Theatre Ecologies”, 29th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Augsburg, 3-6 June [online].
2019: “Trolling Masculinity: The Performativity of Gender on Dating Apps”, paper presented at “Performativity and Creativity in Modern Cultures”, Charles University Prague, 23 November.
2018: attendance at “Fear and Anxiety in Contemporary Drama and Performance”, 27th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Hildesheim, 31 May-3 June.
2017: co-organization of “Terror on Tour: Borders, Detours & Contingencies”, 3rd Annual Conference of the Terror on Tour Network, University of Innsbruck, 29-31 March.
2016: attendance at “Theatre and Mobility”, 25th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Eichstätt, 26-29 May.
2015: “‘Do not run on the platforms … if you look a bit foreign’: Constructing the Travelling Terrorist Subject”, paper presented at the 1st Annual Conference of the Terror on Tour Network, University of Roehampton, London, 11 April.
2015: attendance and thesis project’s presentation at the PhD Forum of “Theatre and Spectatorship”, 24th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Barcelona, 4-7 June.
2014: attendance and thesis project’s presentation at the PhD Forum of “Theatre and History: Cultural Transformations”, 23rd Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Hamburg, 19-22 June.
2013: “The Politics of Representing the Enemy: (Sub)Versions of the Them/Us Dichotomy in Contemporary British War Drama”, paper presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), Charles University Prague, 31 May.
2013: “‘Griefless Girlfriends’ and the Deconstruction of Heroic Masculinity in Contemporary British War Drama”, paper presented at “Contemporary Gendered Performance & Practice”, Queen’s University Belfast, 13 April.
2012: member of the organizing committee of “Bodies on Stage”, 21st Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), Ruhr University Bochum, 7-10 June.
Contemporary British Theatre
2023: participation in the study day on care in/and twenty-first century British theatre within the project “Gender, Affect and Care in Twenty-First Century British Theatre”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 24 February.
2019: director of Trojan Barbie, by Christine Evans, performed by RAI – renegade actors innsbruck, Bogentheater Innsbruck, premiere: 25 June.
2017: “Facts, Facts, Facts (?): The Documentary Impulse and Political Theatre after 9/11”, guest lecture at the University of Siegen, 24 October.
2014: interviews with the playwrights Dennis Kelly, Mark Ravenhill, Atiha Sen Gupta, and Simon Stephens at the National Theatre and Hampstead Theatre in London and at the University of Hamburg as part of the PhD project Theatre on Terror.
2013: interview with Tim Crouch at Charles University Prague as part of the PhD project Theatre on Terror.
Other
2018: director of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, performed by RAI – renegade actors innsbruck, Bogentheater Innsbruck, premiere: 29 June.
2017: director of “Mountain Act”, performed by RAI – renegade actors innsbruck, open-air stage at Christkindlmarkt Innsbruck, premiere: 11 December.
2017: director and scriptwriter of To the Light/Over. A Postmodern Pilgrimage, performed by RAI – renegade actors innsbruck, Bogentheater Innsbruck, premiere: 30 March.
2012: organizer of the double bill Righteous Money / Gerechtes Geld at Ringlokschoppen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, as part of the 21st Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), Ruhr University Bochum, 7-10 June.