Theatre Studies and Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

Two broad areas within Theatre Studies have been characterized as interdisciplinary. The first concerns approaches inspired by the human and social sciences, and, more recently, cultural studies. The second concerns artistic practices that may be described as interartistic, intermedial (since they involve different media and, thus, different technological developments), and intercultual. It is argued that the epistemological paradigm for theatre studies has changed over the last thirty years, and can be broken down roughly according to decades, each defined by its particular contribution to the interdisciplinary thrust of theatre studies. Most current theoretical debates no longer deal with epistemology or methodology, but almost exclusively with the extension of the field of performance. It is suggested that the theoretical and practical worlds must be connected more closely, ‘actor’ and ‘text’ here serving as examples.