Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca is Head of the Department of Theatre & Dance and Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies.
She is author of 'Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance' (2012); editor of 'Deleuze and Performance' (2009) and co-editor of 'Encounters in Performance Philosophy' (2014) with Alice Lagaay and 'Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics' (2013) with Will Daddario.
She is a founding convener of the professional association, Performance Philosophy (http://www.performancephilosophy.org); joint series editor of the Performance Philosophy book series with Palgrave Macmillan and joint editor of the Performance Philosophy journal launched in 2015.
Research Interests
Performance Philosophy; 20th and 21st century experimental theatre and performance - especially Artaud, the Living Theatre, Allan Kaprow, Lygia Clark, Carmelo Bene, Hijikata Tatsumi, Marcus Coates & Goat Island; relationship between performance and Continental philosophy - especially Deleuze and Guattari, Bergson & Laruelle; concepts of authorship, collaboration, collective creation & audience participation in performance; affect; time and duration; nonhuman animals in performance; manifestos; relationship between performance and mental health - particularly schizophrenia.
Research Collaborations
Core Convener of the Performance Philosophy network
Joint editor of Performance Philosophy book series, Palgrave Macmillan
Secretary of Performance Studies international (PSi)
Member of Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)
Cull LK.
(2015) 'Editorial'. Performance Philosophy, 1 Article number 1 , pp. 1-3.
Cull LK.
(2014) 'Performance Philosophy: Staging a New Field'. New Arts - Journal of the National Academy of Art, 34 (6) [ Status: Submitted ]
Cull LK.
(2013) '‘Philosophy as Drama: Deleuze and dramatization in the context of Performance Philosophy’'. Modern Drama: world drama from 1850 to the present, 56 (4), pp. 498-520.
Cull LK.
(2013) 'Philosophy as Drama: Deleuze and dramatization in the context of Performance Philosophy'. Special Issue on Drama and Philosophy (Winter 2013) Edition. Modern Drama: world drama from 1850 to the present, 56 (4), pp. 498-520.
Cull LK.
(2013) ''A Response to Martin Puchner’s Drama of Ideas', in Forum on Martin Puchner, "The drama of ideas", ed. by C. Rozzoni, with M. Puchner, D. Kornhaber, L. Cull, T. Stern, M. Harries'. Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, (3), pp. 116-124.
Cull LK.
(2012) 'Affect in Deleuze, Hijikata, and Coates: The Politics of Becoming-Animal in Performance'. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 26 (2), pp. 189-203.
Cull LK.
(2012) 'Performance as Philosophy: Responding to the
Problem of ‘Application’'. Cambridge University Press Theatre Research International, 37 (1), pp. 20-27.
This article begins from the premise that a ‘critical turning point’ has been reached in terms of the relationship between performance and philosophy. Theatre and performance scholars are becoming increasingly engaged in philosophical discourse and there are growing amounts of work that take philosophy – from the work of Plato to Heidegger and Deleuze – as their guiding methodology for performance analysis. However, this article argues that we need to go further in questioning how we use philosophy in relation to performance, and that theatre and performance scholarship should attempt to go beyond merely applying philosophical concepts to performance ‘examples’. One way to do this, the article suggests, is by questioning the very distinction between performance and philosophy, for instance by exploring the idea of performance as philosophy. The article concludes by drawing from the work of figures such as Allan Kaprow, Henri Bergson, François Laruelle and John Mullarkey to argue that philosophers and performance scholars alike might extend their conception of what counts as thinking to include not only activities like performance, but embodied experiences and material processes of all kinds.
Cull LK, Gritzner K.
(2011) 'On Participation. Editorial to the Special Issue.'. Taylor & Francis Performance Research: a journal of the performing arts, 16 (4), pp. 1-6.
Cull LK.
(2011) 'Attention-training: Immanence and
ontological participation in Kaprow,
Deleuze & Bergson'. Taylor & Francis Performance Research: a journal of the performing arts, 16 (4), pp. 80-91.
In this essay I want to look at the works that
the American artist Allan Kaprow (1927–2006)
referred to as ‘Activities’, alongside the
philosophy of immanence propounded by
Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and with reference
to the notion of ‘attention’ developed by Henri Bergson (1859–1941).
Cull LK.
(2009) 'How Do You Make Yourself a Theatre without
Organs? Deleuze, Artaud and the Concept of
Differential Presence'. Cambridge University Press Theatre Research International, 34 (3), pp. 243-255.
This article provides an exposition of four key concepts emerging in the encounter between the
philosophical man of the theatre, Antonin Artaud, and the theatrical philosopher, Gilles Deleuze:
the body without organs, the theatre without organs, the destratified voice and differential presence.
The article proposes that Artaud’s 1947 censored radio play To Have Done with the Judgment of
God constitutes an instance of a theatre without organs that uses the destratified voice in a pursuit
of differential presence – as a nonrepresentative encounter with difference that forces new thoughts
upon us. Drawing from various works by Deleuze, including Difference and Repetition, The Logic of
Sense, A Thousand Plateaus and ‘One LessManifesto’, I conceive differential presence as an encounter
with difference, or perpetual variation, as that which exceeds the representational consciousness of
a subject, forcing thought through rupture rather than communicating meanings through sameness.
Contra the dismissal of Artaud’s project as paradoxical or impossible, the article suggests that his
nonrepresentational theatre seeks to affirm a new kind of presence as difference, rather than aiming to
transcend difference in order to reach the self-identical presence of Western metaphysics.
Conference papers
Cull LK.
(2015) '‘Doing Performance Philosophy: attention, collaboration and the missing “&”’'. University of Malta: Performing Interdisciplinarity
Cull LK.
(2013) '‘Performance Philosophy: The “Mind the Gap” and/or “Performance as Philosophy” debate’'. Senate House, London: London Theatre Seminar
Cull LK.
(2013) 'What is Performance Philosophy?'. Institute of the Philosophy of Language, New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal: Conference Drama and Philosophy
Cull LK.
(2013) 'What is Performance Philosophy?'. Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance: Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance – Research Seminar Series
Cull LK.
(2012) 'Schizo-theatre: Guattari, Deleuze, performance and “madness”'. Northumbria University: Situating and Interpreting States of Mind [ Status: Unpublished ]
Cull LK.
(2012) 'Each one is already several… Collaboration in the context of the differential self. Notes on Goat Island & Deleuze & Guattari'. Middlesex University: On Collaboration
Cull LK.
(2012) 'Performance-Philosophy: A ‘philosophical turn’ in Performance Studies (and a non-philosophical turn in Philosophy)'. Central School of Speech and Drama: Performing Research: Creative Exchanges [ Status: Unpublished ]
Books
Cull LK, Lagaay A.
(2014) Encounters in Performance Philosophy. London and New York : Palgrave Macmillan
Cull LK, Daddario W.
(2013) Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics. Intellect
Cull LK.
(2012) Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance. Palgrave Macmillan , pp. viii-291.
Cull LK.
(2009) Deleuze and Performance. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press
Was performance important to Deleuze? Is Deleuze important to performance; to its practical, as well as theoretical, research? What are the implications of Deleuze's philosophy of difference, process and becoming, for Performance Studies, a field in which many continue to privilege the notion of performance as representation, as anchored by its imitation of an identity: 'the world', 'the play', 'the self'?
Deleuze and Performance is a collection of new essays dedicated to Deleuze's writing on theatre and to the productivity of his philosophy for (re)thinking performance. This book provides rigorous analyses of Deleuze's writings on theatre practitioners such as Artaud, Beckett and Carmelo Bene, as well as offering innovative readings of historical and contemporary performance including performance art, dance, new media performance, theatre and opera, which use Deleuze's concepts in exciting new ways. Can philosophy follow Deleuze in overcoming the antitheatrical tradition embedded in its history, perhaps even reconsidering what it means to think in the light of the embodied insights of performance's practitioners? Experts from the fields of Performance Studies and Deleuze Studies come together in this volume and strive to examine these and other issues in a manner that will be challenging, yet accessible to students and established scholars alike.
Book chapters
Cull LK.
(2015) 'Since Each of Us Was Several: Collaboration in the Context of the Differential Self'. in Colin N, Sachsenmeier S (eds.) Collaboration in Performance Practice: Premises, Workings and Failures
London : Palgrave Macmillan Article number 7 [ Status: Submitted ]
Cull LK.
(2015) 'From Homo Performans to Interspecies Collaboration: Expanding the concept of performance to include animals'. in Orozco L, Parker-Starbuck J (eds.) Performing Animality: Animals in Performance Practice
Basingstoke / New York : Palgrave Macmillan Article number 1 , pp. 19-36.
Cull LK.
(2014) '‘Performance Philosophy’'. in Reynolds B (ed.) Performance Studies: Key Words, Concepts, and Theories
Palgrave Macmillan , pp. 91-100. [ Status: Submitted ]
Cull LK.
(2014) 'Deleuze’s bodies, philosophical diseases and the thought of illness'. in (ed.) Wissen wir, was ein Körper vermag? Rhizomatische Körper in Religion, Kunst, Philosophie
Germany : transcript Verlag Article number 12 , pp. 185-198.
Cull LK.
(2014) 'Performance Philosophy: Staging a New Field'. in Cull L, Lagaay A (eds.) Encounters in Performance Philosophy
London and New York : Palgrave Macmillan Article number 1 , pp. 15-38.
Cull LK.
(2014) 'From Homo Performans to Interspecies Collaboration:
Broadening the Spectrum to include Nonhuman Performance'. in Parker-Starbuck J, Orozco L (eds.) Performing Animality: Animals in Performance Practices
Palgrave Macmillan [ Status: Submitted ]
Cull LK.
(2013) 'Schizo-theatre: Guattari, Deleuze, performance and “madness”'. in Garcin-Marrou F, Querrien A (eds.) Schizodrames
80 Edition. Paris : Erès
Cull LK.
(2013) 'An education of attention: The perception of change in Bergson and performance'. in Benedek A, Nyiri K (eds.) How to Do Things with Pictures: Skill, Practice, Performance
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, New York, Oxford and Vienna : Peter Lang
Cull LK.
(2013) '(One Less) Manifesto for a Theatre of Immanence'. in Cull LK, Daddario W (eds.) Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics
Bristol : Intellect , pp. 145-158.
Cull LK, Daddario W.
(2013) 'Analogue 0: Manifesto Now! (Again!)'. in Cull LK, Daddario W (eds.) Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics
Bristol and Chicago : Intellect , pp. 3-20.
Cull LK.
(2013) 'Performance Studies'. in Leonard A, Shephard T (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture
London and New York : Routledge , pp. 59-66.
Cull LK.
(2013) 'Collective Creation as a Theatre of Immanence: Deleuze and The Living Theatre'. in Mederos Syssoyeva K, Proudfit S (eds.) A History of Collective Creation
Palgrave Macmillan Article number 7 , pp. 129-144.
Cull LK, Goulish M, Hixson L.
(2013) 'A Diluted Manifesto'. in Walsh F, Causey M (eds.) Performance, Identity and the Neo-Political Subject
Routledge Article number 7 , pp. 119-137.
Cull LK.
(2011) 'While remaining on the shore: Ethics in Deleuze’s encounter with Antonin Artaud'. in Jun N, Smith DW (eds.) Deleuze and Ethics
Edinburgh University Press , pp. 44-62.
Cull LK.
(2011) 'Performing presence, affirming difference: Deleuze and the minor theatre of Georges Lavaudant and Carmelo Bene'. in Lavery C, Finburgh C (eds.) Contemporary French Theatre and Performance
Palgrave Macmillan , pp. 99-110.
Goulish M, Cull LK.
(2009) 'sub specie durationis'. in Cull L (ed.) Deleuze and Performance
Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press Article number 7 , pp. 126-146.
Cull LK.
(2009) 'Introduction'. in Cull LK (ed.) Deleuze and Performance
Edinburgh University Press
Other publications
Cull L.
(2015) Performance Philosophy. UK : Open Access / OASPA Performance Philosophy, 1, pp. 1-281.
Cull L.
(2011) On Philosophy and Participation. London : Routledge Performance Research: a journal of the performing arts, 16 (4), pp. 1-142.
