From The Book Review Editor

Extract

Well-written reviews counteract the inertia that can afflict any field, given the pressures on the professorate and the limited resources of academic publishing houses. Between the demands of teaching, publication, production, and university service many theatre professors struggle to keep up with the literature related to their own research interests, let alone read broadly in the field. In such a context, no book—not even an excellent book—is assured an audience. Books that are not easily categorized, that do not fit comfortably in a given discipline, or that address underresearched topics are even less likely to reach a broad audience (and “broad” in terms of academic publishing is clearly a relative term). Reviews create audiences for books that might otherwise sit unnoticed in the margins of a field. Every review implicitly charts important directions for the field; reviews identify central conversations in the academy and indicate how theatre studies can engage these conversations. Reviews help us to be eclectic readers, and we must be such readers if we hope to speak beyond the circle that shares our individual research interests. It is in the spirit of eclecticism that Theatre Survey has instituted the column “What Are You Reading?” asking innovative scholars to share and reflect on the texts that feed their thinking. It is in the same spirit that Theatre Survey reviews a broad spectrum of the books received and invites both junior and senior scholars to propose reviews of books that the journal has not received but that should come to the attention of scholars of theatre and performance studies. Reviews help shape the field. Theatre Survey looks for reviews that cultivate new performance-centered historiographic study, reflecting a diverse range of methodological and critical perspectives.