Out/performing in the academy: writing ‘The Breast Project’

Abstract

This paper tells the multi-layered story of how the author came to write a theatre script about breasts as part of her research. She frames this writing as ‘border-work’ as she plays at the edges of academic and fictional writing. In this paper ideas from Barthes and Cixous are interleaved with extracts from the author's own texts and with her story of writing for theatre in order to explore how poststructural theory can open up new spaces and places from which (and into which) to write. She describes the collaborative contexts of collective biography research, of writing, of dramaturgy, and of performance within which ‘the Breast Project’ was written and speculates on the extent to which the theatre script was shaped within and by these contexts.

Notes

* School of Education and Early Childhood Studies, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag, 1797, South Penrith DC 179, Australia. Email: [email protected]

‘The Breast Project’ is a draft still in development at the time of writing. It was developed within the Enter Stage Write program of JUTE (Just Us Theatre Ensemble), Cairns, in partnership with Playlab and the Queensland Theatre Company. Dramaturgical input came from Michael Gow, Tom Gutteridge, Ian Brown, Maryanne Lynch, Kathryn Ash, and Sue Rider. These ­extracts come from the draft presented at the JUTE Playwrights Conference in Cairns, October 2001. The play is scheduled for November 2004.

Collective memory is also called collective biography by some practitioners (cf. Gannon, 2001, pp. 787–789).

The International Frauenuniversität (International Women's University) was a three-month postgraduate program in English based at the University of Hanover, Germany, and held ­during the European summer of 2000.

Davies et al. (2003).

See Gannon (2001) for a description of how I used the figure of myself as artisan to write ­collective poetry from research data.

The JUTE Playwrights' Conference, held 12–14 October 2001, as the culminating event of the Enter Stage Write Script Development program.

A Bibliography including publishing and performance details is included in Cixous & Calle-Gruber (1997, pp. 218–219).

‘Public’ in that the play-reading sessions of the conference were advertised in local media and members of the public could purchase tickets to attend these sessions.

Timothy Daly, Dramaturge-in-residence, Australian National Playwright Centre (personal communication) 14 October 2001.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susanne Gannon *

* School of Education and Early Childhood Studies, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag, 1797, South Penrith DC 179, Australia. Email: [email protected]