Cristina Delgado-García is Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow.
Cristina holds a PhD in Theatre Studies (Aberystwyth University), an MA in Post-1900s Literatures, Theories and Cultures (University of Manchester), a BA in English (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and a BA in Journalism (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). She has also completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Her research interests revolve around British playwriting and performance, and their intersection with political and ethical concerns in the context of neoliberalism and the crisis of democracy. She has published on the works of Sarah Kane, Tim Crouch, Ed Thomas and theatre company Quarantine, as well as on modernist and graphic narratives. Her monograph Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics, Subjectivity was published in 2015. The book was a reworked version of her doctoral thesis, which won the 2014 CDE Award, granted by the German Society for Contemporary Drama and Theatre in English (CDE). With Mireia Aragay and Martin Middeke, she co-edited the collection Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
Cristina was co-convenor of the Political Performances Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research (2018-2022) and Reviews Editor for Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance (2018-2022).
She was a co-investigator for “Ethical Issues in Contemporary British Theatre since 1989: Globalization, Theatricality, Spectatorship” (FFI2012-31842), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, a four-year research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the EU European Regional Development Fund (FFI2016-75443). She was also a co-investigator for “Representations of the Precarious in Contemporary British Drama and Theatre”, a one-year (2014) research project funded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD; Projekt-ID 57049392).
Contemporary British Theatre
2021: co-editor with Mireia Aragay and Martin Middeke, Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030584856
2021: with Mireia Aragay and Martin Middeke, “Introduction: Thinking-Feeling Our Way”, Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. Eds. Mireia Aragay, Cristina Delgado-García and Martin Middeke. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-18. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030584856
2021: “Contemporary British Theatre, Democracy and Affect: States of Feeling”, Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. Eds. Mireia Aragay, Cristina Delgado-García and Martin Middeke. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 149-170. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030584856
2021: “Introduction”, X. Alistair McDowall. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, pp. v-xxiv.
2019: “An Interview with Simon Banham, Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea”, parts one to five, Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring.: Staging Life and Death. Eds. Simon Banham, Sarah Hunter, Michael Brady and Renny O’Shea. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 10-11, 16-22, 69-73, 112-113.
2019: “A Programme Note from Summer.”, Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring.: Staging Life and Death. Eds. Simon Banham, Sarah Hunter, Michael Brady and Renny O’Shea. Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 23.
2017: “‘We’re All in This Together’: Reality, Vulnerability and Democratic Representation in Tim Crouch’s The Author”, Of Precariousness: Vulnerabilities, Responsibilities, Communities in 21st-Century British Drama and Theatre. Eds. Mireia Aragay and Martin Middeke. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 91–107.
2016: “‘Who Is the Performer and Who Is the Spectator?: Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea in Conversation with Cristina Delgado-García”, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 4: 1, pp. 212-26.
2016: “Sing without Hope, Tender with Trust”, programme notes for 4.48 Psychosis, opera in one act based on the play by Sarah Kane, comp. Philip Venables, dir. Ted Huffman (London: Lyric Hammersmith, May), pp. 4-7.
2016: “On Summer”, programme notes for Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring, by Quarantine, dir. Richard Gregory (Manchester: Old Granada Studios, March-April), pp. 8-10.
2015: Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics, Subjectivity. CDE Studies 26. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
2015: ‘Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards… A Harvest of Memory’, preview notes for Autumn, by Quarantine, dir. Richard Gregory (Lancaster: Lancaster Arts, October), <http://qtine.com/notebook/looking-backwards-looking-forwards-a-harvest-of-memory/>
2015: “Making Time: The Prefigurative Politics of Quarantine’s Entitled”, Performances of Capitalism, Crises and Resistance: Inside/Outside Europe. Eds. Marilena Zaroulia and Philip Hager. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 94-112.
2014: “Dematerialised Political and Theatrical Legacies: Rethinking the Roots and Influences of Tim Crouch’s Work”, Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts 8: 1, pp. 69-85.
2012: “Subversion, Refusal, and Contingency: The Transgression of Liberal-Humanist Subjectivity and Characterization in Sarah Kane’s Cleansed, Crave, and 4.48 Psychosis”, Modern Drama 55: 2, pp. 230-50.
Other
2015: “Invisible Spaces for the ‘Impossible’ State: National Identity and the Production of Space in Joe Sacco’s Palestine” . ImageTexT 8: 1, n. pag. http://www.english.ufl.edu/
2014: P is for Podemos. “Acts of Voting: A Lexicon”, eds. Marilena Zaroulia and Philip Hager. Interventions n. pag. http://www.
2013: Review of Playing with Theory in Theatre Practice (Eds. Megan Alrutz, Julia Listengarten and M. Van Duyn Wood, 2012), Performing Ethos 3: 1, pp. 77-79.
2010: “Decentring Discourse, Self-Centred Politics: Radicalism and the Self in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway“, Atlantis: Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 32: 1, pp. 15-28.
Contemporary British Theatre
2022: co-organisation of the Political Performances Working Group meetings and panels at “Shifting Centres: In the Middle of Nowhere”, International Federation for Theatre Research conference (IFTR/FIRT), Reykjavík, 20-24 July.
2021: co-organisation of the Political Performances Working Group meetings and panels at “Theatre Ecologies: Environment, Sustainability and Politics”, International Federation for Theatre Research conference (IFTR/FIRT), Galway, 12-16 July [originally scheduled for 2020, postponed due to COVID-19; online].
2021: “‘Birth Me in Reverse’: Returning to Character Otherwise”, keynote presentation at the conference “Resisting Theatre: Plays, Politics and the Academy”, Centre for Contemporary British Theatre (Royal Holloway, University of London) and University of York, 18-20 June [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].
2021: attendance at the conference “Dystopian/Utopian Theatre in Britain after 2000 and Its Political Spaces”, Bielefeld University, 11-13 March [online].
2020: attendance at the conference “The New Wave of British Women Playwrights: Experimenting with Forms”, Sorbonne University, 11-12 December [online].
2020: attendance at the symposium “Critical Directions: Where Next for the Drama of Climate Crisis?”, Mid Sweden University, 26 November [online].
2019: co-organisation of the Political Performances Working Group meetings and panels at the conference “Theatre, Performance and Urbanism”, International Federation for Theatre Research conference (IFTR/FIRT), Shanghai, 8-12 July.
2018: with Lucy Ellinson, Aneta Mancewicz and Chris Thorpe, facilitator of two participatory workshops on theatre and democracy at the conference “Radical Mischief: A Conference Inviting Experiment in Theatre, Thought and Politics”, co-organised by the University of Birmingham and Royal Shakespeare Conference, Stratford-upon-Avon, 20-21 July.
2018: co-organisation of the Political Performances Working Group meetings and panels at the conference “Theatre and Migration. Theatre, Nation and Identity: Between Migration and Stasis”, International Federation for Theatre Research conference (IFTR/FIRT), Belgrade, 9-13 July.
2018: co-organisation of the annual Standing Conference of University Drama Departments (SCUDD), University of Birmingham, 26-27 June.
2017: attendance at the conference “Nation, Nationhood and Theatre”, 26th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Reading, 29 June-2 July.
2017: “The Work of Others: Delegated Performance, the Workers and Their Double”, keynote presentation for the symposium “Theatre, Performance & Employment”, Queen Mary, University of London, 23-24 February.
2016: attendance at the conference “Environment, Economy and Climate Change: Stages in Transition”, University of Birmingham, 4-5 July.
2016: attendance at the conference “British Theatre in the 21st Century: New Texts, New Stages, New Identities, New Worlds”, co-organised by Université Paris-Sorbonne, Royal Holloway, Univeristy of London, and Université de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Paris, 29 June-2 July.
2016: with Andy Smith, “‘Poetics and Politics: Dealing with Representation in Contemporary British Theatre”, paper presented at 4th International Conference “What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English”, University of Lincoln, 27-30 June.
2016: “Spectacular Ambivalence: Tim Crouch’s The Author in its Theatrical and Political Context”, paper presented at “Presenting the Theatrical Past”, International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (IFTR/ FIRT), Stockholm, 13-17 June.
2015: member of the organizing committee, “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: “‘For Something Worthwhile to Happen It’s Simply Not Enough to Wish the Situation Otherwise’: Pessimism, Metatheatricality and Spectatorship in Chris Thorpe’s There Has Possibly Been an Incident and Tim Crouch and Andy Smith’s what happens to the hope at the end of the evening”, paper presented at 3rd International Conference “What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English”, University of Lincoln, 14-17 July.
2013: “Conceptual Art, Theatre, and ‘The Return of the Repressed’: Rethinking Tim Crouch’s Dramaturgy and its Politics”, paper presented at “Re-Routing Performance/Re-caminant l’escena”, International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (IFTR/ FIRT), Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, 22-26 July.
2013: “Making Time, Undoing Habitus: Equality and Emancipation in Quarantine’s Entitled”, paper presented at “Theatre and Politics: Theatre as Cultural Intervention”, 22nd Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), Charles University, Prague, 30 May – 2 June.
2013: “‘Look at us. All this is art’: Capitalism, Aesthetics and the Invisible Politics of Consent in Tim Crouch’s ENGLAND”, paper presented at the international conference “The Viewing of Politics and the Politics of Viewing: Theatre Challenges in the Age of Globalised Communities”, Aristotle University (Thessaloniki), 18-21 April.
2012: “Character, Subjectivity and Politics in Tim Crouch’s ENGLAND”, paper given at the symposium “Critical reflection, imaginative engagement: exploring the work of Tim Crouch”, Newcastle University, 13 July.
2012: “‘You Are a Me’: Fragmentation, Multiplication and Relationality in Ed Thomas’s Stone City Blue”, paper given at the TFTS Postgraduate Research Conference, Aberystwyth University, 27 March.
2011: “‘Welshness is a State of Mind’: Unmapping Ed Thomas’s Politics”, provocation delivered at the postgraduate symposium “Who Do We Think We Are: Representing the Human”, organized by the Drama and Theatre Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, 19 April.
2009: “The Pains of Keeping Gender Radicalism in Play: Dismemberment, Disembodiment and Contingency in Sarah Kane’s Work”, paper given at the conference “Representing Gender in the Performative Arts”, University of Groningen, 12-13 November.
2009: “En/Acting Subversive Selves: The Limited Transgression of Liberal-Humanist Subjectivity and Characterisation in Sarah Kane’s Cleansed, Crave and 4.48 Psychosis”, paper given at the conference “Against and Beyond: Subversion and Transgression in Drama, Theatre, Film and Media”, University of Lódz, 22-24 October.
Contemporary British Theatre
2023: “Approaching Theatrical Character Against Anthropocentric Cultural Orientations”, guest research seminar, Cambridge Graduate Drama and Performance Seminar, University of Cambridge, 9 March.
2022: member of the Scientific Committee for the joint International Conference of Early Career Researchers in Theatre Studies (CIJIET) / MUTIS Stage Research and Practice Conference, in collaboration with Institut del Teatre, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, 8-11 November.
2020: invited speaker at the research showcase “Different Stages” public event, part of “Different Stages: Exploring Public Engagement for Drama and Theatre Early Career Academics”, Glasgow Women’s Library, 16 January.
2019: participation in the symposium on crisis within the project “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 11-12 April.
2019: attendance at the symposium “Theory Now: A Symposium for Theory and Its Futures”, University of Glasgow, 22-23 March.
2018: filmed conversation with theatre critic Lyn Gardner on contemporary British theatre, participation and engagement for the Digital Theatre + platform, Stratford-upon-Avon, 20 July.
2018: “This is what Emocracy Looks Like: The Turn to Affect in Contemporary Political Dramaturgies”, paper presented at the symposium on affect within the project “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 12-13 April.
2018: participation in the study day on crisis within the project “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 12 April.
2018: “Tell, Don’t Show: The Theatre of Tim Crouch”, guest lecture for undergraduate unit Contemporary Theatre in English, Universitat de Barcelona, Departament de Llengües i Literatures Modernes i Estudis Anglesos, 11 April.
2017: “Labours Lost: Delegated Performance and the Work of Erasure”, guest research seminar. Event co-hosted by the 21st Century Research Group and the Contemporary Playwriting Research Group, University of Lincoln, 14 December.
2017: “Labours Lost: Delegated Performance and the Work of Erasure”, guest research seminar. Department of Film Theatre and Television, University of Reading, 16 November.
2017: participation in the study day on affect within the project “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 24 March.
2017: “Labours Lost: Delegated Performance and the Work of Erasure”, keynote presentation at the symposium “Theatre, Performance & Employment”, Queen Mary, University of London, 23 February.
2016: participation in the study day on happiness organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 12 May.
2016: “Departures from Realism, Engagements with the Real: Sarah Kane’s Blasted in Context“, guest lecture for undergraduate unit Contemporary Theatre in English, Universitat de Barcelona, Departament de Llengües i Literatures Modernes i Estudis Anglesos, 11 May.
2016: attendance at the symposium “Sarah Kane Explored: Staging the Unstageable”, Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre, London, 11 March.
2015: a conversation with Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea (Quarantine), part of the 24th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), Barcelona, 4-7 June.
2014: “From Ethics to Politics: Vulnerability, Consent and Consensus in Tim Crouch’s The Author“, a paper presented within the “Second Augsburg-Barcelona Seminar” organized by the research project “Darstellungen des Prekären im britishen Gegenwartstheater” (“Representations of the Precarious in Contemporary British Theatre”), funded by the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst – German Academic Exchange Service; Projekt-ID: 57049392),University of Barcelona, 17 September.
2013: “Beyond Identity: the Political Gestures of Quarantine’s Aesthetics”, paper delivered at the “Inside/Outside Europe: On Performance, Identities and Ruptures” symposium, organized by the Inside/Outside Europe research network, University of Winchester, 2 November.
2012: “The Politics of Space and Time in Sarah Kane’s Blasted“, guest lecture for undergraduate unit Contemporary British Theatre, Universitat de Barcelona, Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya, 23 May.
2011: “Postdramatic Theatre, Post-traumatic Cities: Simon Stephens’s Pornography“, guest lecture for undergraduate unit Contemporary Theatre in English, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística, 19 May.
2011: “Beyond the Pain Principle: Gender, Desire and Selfhood in Sarah Kane’s work after Blasted“, guest lecture for undergraduate unit Contemporary British Theatre, Universitat de Barcelona, Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya, 18 May.
Contemporary British Theatre
In progress: Luz Cáceres, “Verbatim Theatre: Advancing Testimonial Justice and Inclusive Deliberation in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador”, University of Glasgow (lead supervisor; co-supervised with Nathanial Gardner and Andrea Baumeister).
2022: Andrew Lennon, “Beyond Documentary Theatres: Shifting Iterations of Documentary Practices”, University of Birmingham (co-supervisor; supervised by Liz Tomlin).