Erin Hurley
![Erin Hurley Erin Hurley](https://www.mcgill.ca/english/files/english/styles/medium_focal__220_x_220_/public/hurley_headshot_1.jpeg?itok=x4XiCrSR)
Quebecois theatre and cultural performance; national performatives; theatre historiography; performance studies; dramatic theory; feminist and LGBTQ2IAS+ theatre
I am a feminist scholar and teacher specialising in Québec drama and theatre. My research asks: How does theatre – as an art, a practice, and a space – manage difference? And this, at the level of performance (e.g., relationship between actor and character), representation (of over- and under-represented groups, because representation matters), and affect (is feeling a bridge into otherness)? Such questions have led me to build up additional expertise in affect theory, dramatic and performance theory, creative process, and minority-language cultural production.
Ph.D., City University of New York
M.A., Brown University
Honours B.A., McGill
Books
Le théâtre contemporain au Québec 1945-2015: Essai de synthèse historique et socio-esthétique. Gilbert David (dir.), avec la collaboration de Hervé Guay, Hélène Jacques et Yves Jubinville, (Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2020). Erin collaborated on all chapters except the introduction and conclusion, contributing material on the history of English-language theatre in Quebec from 1945 to 2015.
National Performance: Representing Quebec from Expo 67 to Céline Dion (University of Toronto Press, 2011)
French Translation: De l’Expo 67 à Céline Dion. Essai sur la performance national. (Nota Bene, 2017)
Theatre & Feeling with a foreword by Anne Bogart (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Edited Volumes
“Partition/Ensemble,”, L’Extension: recherche & creation, co-edited with Nicole Nolette and Marie-Christine Lesage (2021)
Includes 9 research-creation presentations with paratext developed out of the 2020 CATR-SQET conference.
Once More, With Feeling: Five Affecting Plays (Playwrights Canada Press, 2014)
Theatres of Affect, vol. 4, New Essays on Canadian Theatre, general editor Ric Knowles (Playwrights Canada Press, 2014)
Articles and Book Chapters
“Changing States: English-Language Theater in Québec,” Humanities and Human Flourishing: Theatre and Performance Studies, edited by Harvey Young and James Pawelski (Oxford UP, 2023): 154-77.
“Introduction,” Scapegoat Carnivale’s Tragic Trilogy, co-authored with Lynn Kozak (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2023): 1-8.
“Theatre in the Canadian Pavilion at Expo 67,” Canadian Performance Documents and Debates: A Sourcebook, edited by Allana Lindgren, Glen Nichols, and Tony Vickery (University of Alberta Press, 2022): 575-87.
« Le théâtre de langue anglaise au Québec, de la majorité à la minorité,» translated by Sylvain Lavoie. Revue d’historiographie du théâtre 6 (Trimestre 1 : 2021).
“Performing Objects and declensions of subjectivity in Montreal female artists solo performances.” Theatre Annual 72 (2019): 57-75.
“Introduction.” Revolt/Compassion: Six Scripts for Contemporary Performance by Michael Springate (Guernica, 2019).
“Occupying the Object: Leslie Baker and Andréane Leclerc in Performance,” Performance Studies in Canada, edited by Laura Levin and Marlis Schweitzer (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017): 262-84.
“Monsters and Motivations: Nathalie Claude’s Solo Performances,” Interview with Nathalie Claude, Queer/ Play: Contemporary Queer Canadian Women’s Performance and Plays, edited by Moynan King. (Playwrights Canada Press, 2017).
“Townships Theatres: Identities and Circuits 1935 – 1982.” Journal of Eastern Townships Studies/Revue d’études des Cantons-de-l’Est 46 (Fall 2016).
"Double Identity: Performing (as) Objects on the Contemporary Montreal Stage,” Ireland and Quebec: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on History, Culture and Society, edited by Margaret Kelleher and Michael Kenneally (Four Courts Press, 2016): 227-42.
“The Multiple Bodies of the Cirque du Soleil.” Cirque Global: Québec's Expanding Circus Boundaries (revised and updated English-language version of Les corps multiples du Cirque du Soleil), edited by Charles Batson and Louis Patrick Leroux (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016): 122-139.
Performance and Public Scholarship
Public-facing scholarship and research-creation are increasingly central aspects of my research, especially as it touches minority-language cultural workers and communities. As part of the English-language Québec theatre project, I’ve produced two series of professional staged-readings of plays and have collaborated with Dr. Alison Bowie on a storymapping website. Recently, Laurence Dauphinais drew on my research behind the scenes and my (amateur) performance skills on stage to create her original play, Cyclorama, which played the Centaur Theatre and the Centre du théâtre d’aujourd’hui in October and November 2022.
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Research Fellow, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, 2020-2022
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Member of the College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada, 2015-2022
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Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Quebec Studies, SUNY-Plattsburgh, Winter 2016
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Louis Dudek Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2015
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Visiting Scholar, Centro de Estudos de Teatro, Universidade de Lisboa, December 2014
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Visiting Fellow, Queen Mary University of London, Department of Drama, June 2012
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ATHE Essay in Criticism Award (with Jennifer Harvie), 2000.
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Book Prizes (for National Performance)
Prix du meilleur ouvrage sur le théâtre québécois, prix trienniel de la Société québécoise d’études théâtrales, pour la période de 2011 à 2013, 2014
Pierre Savard Award, International Council for Canadian Studies, 2011-2012
Ann Saddlemyer Award, Canadian Association for Theatre Research, 2011 -
SSHRC Research Grants: 2008-2011; 2015-17; 2018-2023
Research Group Memberships:
- Membre régulière du Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la littérature et la culture québécoises (CRILCQ)
- Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en études montréalaises (CRIEM)/Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal (CIRM), McGill University, 2013-Present
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Brown University, Providence