Mark Phelan

Dr

  • Room 02.004 - 19 University Square

    United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Irish Theatre;
Theatre and conflict;
Post-conflict theatre and performance in Northern Ireland;
Greek Tragedy and Performance;
Theatre History/Historiography

20032024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research Interests

My teaching and research is primarily concerned with the role theatre and performance 'plays' in ongoing processes of conflict transformation in the North of Ireland. I consider this work in a comparative context in relation to postconflict drama produced in South Africa, the former Yugoslavia, and Latin America over the past two decades that deals with issues of truth, remembrance, reconciliation, trauma, transitional justice, forgiveness and forgetting. 

 My research examines how disparate artists, activists, theatre companies, community groups, charities, and other organisations involved in conflict resolution in Northern Ireland, have collectively produced a diffuse repertoire of work through which  playwrights and practitioners have developed effective approaches for dealing with the legacies of political violence. This uncatalogued (and largely unpublished) body of work mobilises theatre as a public forum for civic debate, and has helped to assimilate traumatic history into public memory; to engage (and stage) the politics and processes of reconciliation; and to explore possible models through which a postconflict society may deal with the past.

I also maintain wide-ranging research interests in other areas and have written on post-conflict photography in the North; nineteenth-century faction fighting; bare knuckle boxing; radio drama; queer historiography; theatre criticism; Roger Casement; Stewart Parker, Brian Friel and The Northern Revival. Connecting these otherwise disparate topics is my shared interest in the roles ‘played’ by theatre and performance in relation to politics, culture and the public sphere.

 PHD Supervision

I have successfully supervised several doctoral projects: on post-conflict theatre and performance in Northern Ireland and Sarajevo; postconflict queer theatre & performance in Northern Ireland; the role of song twentieth century Irish theatre; Translation and Irish Theatre, with other doctoral projects focusing on the work of Stewart Parker, Brian Friel, Owen McCafferty, Marina Carr and John B. Keane. I would welcome prospective PhD students interested in working in any of these areas:

- Irish Theatre
- Postconflict Theatre & Performance
- Theatre and Memory Studies
- Theatre history/historiography
- The Politics/Performance/Adaptation of ancient Greek Tragedy
- Theatre and Conflict

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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