Jonathan W. Marshall
Lecturer in Theatre Studies and Performing Arts Studies
PhD (Melbourne)
Tel 64 3 479 8893
Fax 64 3 479 5235
Email jonathan.marshall@otago.ac.nz
Research Interests
Dr Marshall's research is on the relationship between the histories of performance and those of medicine, focusing particularly on 19th century French neurophysiology - a medical discipline that studies the movement or performance of the living patient (the choreography of seizure, description of tremors, mechanics of gesture, etc).
Dr Marshall's chosen field also touches upon the histories of photography, cinematography, dance, cabaret, theatre, para-science, hypnosis, hysteria, Brecht, Artaud, the avant-garde, sex and gender, and other topics in the cultural history of the body and its performative representation.
Dr Marshall has also published on contemporary Australian postmodern dance, butoh, Australian music theatre, Australian visual arts, sound art and New Music.
Current Projects
- Teaching of anatomy at the Paris School of Fine Arts, 1862-1940.
- French neurophysiology and its influence on the performing arts, esp. modern dance (Marey, Dalcroze, etc).
- Issues of embodiment, performativity and total art as they apply to Australian modernist artist, Roger Kemp.
- The work of contemporary choreographer Lucy Guerin.
- Australian New Music and sound art (esp. David Chesworth and Sonia Leber).
- Parascientific discourse and performance, 1860-1940 (hypnotism, Mesmerism, Spiritism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, etc).
- Most recent publications:
- Marshall, Jonathan W., ed., Boom or Bust! special theme edition of Double Dialogues 14 (Melbourne: Deakin University / University of Melbourne, Summer 2011).
Marshall, Jonathan W., introduction, “The Ballad of Hercule Barbin” by Greg Burley, Double Dialogues 14 (Melbourne: Deakin University / University of Melbourne, Summer 2011).
Marshall, Jonathan W., sole author, “Kleist’s Übermarionetten and Schrenck-Notzing’s Traumtänzerin: Nervous Mechanics and Hypnotic Performance Under Modernism,” in Bernd Fischer & Tim Mehigan, eds., Heinrich von Kleist and Modernity (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2011), pp. 261-281.
Marshall, Jonathan W., sole author, “Corporeal Spectacle and Sublime Annihilation: Post World War Two US Art and the Theatrical Operations of Edward Burtynsky’s Environmental Photography,” Double Dialogues 14 (Melbourne: Deakin University / University of Melbourne, Summer 2011).
Marshall, “Theatre, Exchange and the Sine Wave: Reciprocal Relations in the World of Busting or Booming Performance,” Double Dialogues 14 (Melbourne: Deakin University / University of Melbourne, Summer 2011).
Marshall, “Sonic Pleasure, Absence and the History of the Self: An Alternative Approach to the Criticism of Sound Art,” Sound Scripts: Proceedings of the Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference, 3 (Canberra: Australian Music Centre, 2011), pp. 6-25.
Previous Experience
Jonathan studied at the University of Melbourne, where he majored in history and performance.
He was awarded the Felix Raab Prize in European History (1991) and the Alma Hansen Scholarship (2000).
He undertook both his Masters and his PhD at the Department of History, University of Melbourne: "Civilisation & its Discontent Hamlets: Renaissance melancholy, Modernist neurosis & Shakespeare's prince" (1998), and "Performing Neurology: The dramaturgy of Dr Jean-Martin Charcot" (2003), respectively.
During this time he also began his career as a critic of performance and the arts, publishing in popular, specialist and journalistic outlets, as well as academic publications such as "Australasian Drama Studies". He is currently a contributing editor for RealTime Australia.
Awards and Recognition
- Edith Cowan University internal Faculty award for "building bridges" between schools & staff, Faculty of Arts and Education, Feb 2008.
- Visiting Researcher Grant, The Bakken Library and Museum of Electricity in Life, Minneapolis, Sept 2005.
- Alma Hansen Scholarship (research), Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne, 2000.
- Felix Raab Prize in European History (essay prize), Department of History, University of Melbourne, 1991.
Publications
