R. Darren Gobert
Professor
Office: N/A
Phone: (416)736-2100 Ext: N/A
Email: gobert@yorku.ca
R. Darren Gobert specializes in comparative modern and contemporary Western drama, dramatic and performance theory, and the philosophy of theatre. As a theatre practitioner, he has written stage adaptations and directed plays by Albee, Beckett, Chekhov, and others. From 2015 to 2020, he was the editor of Modern Drama.
His first book, The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater (Stanford UP), was published in 2013; his second, The Theatre of Caryl Churchill (Bloomsbury), in 2014. His current project is a cultural history of catharsis. In support of it, he currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant (2017-2020).
Among Prof. Gobert's honours are the Ann Saddlemyer Prize and the Barnard Hewitt Award for The Mind-Body Stage, the Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching (2008), and the President's University-Wide Teaching Award (2016). He was awarded the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature in 2007.
On leave from York, he is currently William and Sue Gross Professor of Theater Studies and of English at Duke University.
Degrees
Ph.D., English and Comparative Literature, ColumbiaM.Phil, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
M.A., English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
M.A., English, McGill
B.A., French and English, Ottawa
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
Editor, Modern Drama, 2015 - 2020
MLA Drama and Performance Forum Executive Committee, 2018 - 2022
Programming Committee, American Society for Theatre Research, 2019 conference (Arlington)
Research Interests
The Theatre of Caryl Churchill. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2013.
Recent British Drama. Edited special issue of Modern Drama 50.3 (2007).
“The Immaterial Matters.” The Public Intellectual and the Culture of Hope. Ed. Joel Faflak and Jason Haslam. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2013. 250-67.
“Arcadia and the Ghosts of Past Performance.” Lectures de Tom Stoppard: Arcadia. Ed. Liliane Campos and Julie Vatain. Rennes, France: Rennes UP, 2011. 147-59.
"On Performance and Selfhood in Caryl Churchill.” The Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill. Ed. Elin Diamond and Elaine Aston. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. 105-24.
“Dramatic Catharsis, Freudian Hysteria, and the ‘Private Theatre’ of Anna O.” Emotions: A Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Jennifer Harding and E. Deidre Pribram. New York: Routledge, 2009. 321-35.
“Historicizing Emotion: The Case of Freudian Hysteria and Aristotelian Purgation.” Emotion, Place and Culture. Ed. Mick Smith et al. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009. 57-76.
Review of Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious by Maria Turri. Theatre Research International 43.2 (2018): 228-29.
Review of The First Frame: Theatre Space in Enlightenment France by Pannill Camp. Theatre Journal 67.4 (2015): 761-62.
Review of The Persistence of Allegory: Drama and Neoclassicism from Shakespeare to Wagner by Jane K. Brown. Modern Philology 107:3 (2010): E45-48.
"The Field of Modern Drama, or Arcadia." Modern Drama 58.3 (2015): 285-301.
“Behaviorism, Catharsis, and the History of Emotion." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 26.2 (2012): 109-25.
"Finding a Physical Language, Directing for the Nineties Generation: In Conversation with James Macdonald.” New Theatre Quarterly 24.2 (2008): 141-57.
“Cartesian Subjectivity on the Neoclassical Stage; or, Molière Acts Corneille for Louis XIV.” Theatre Survey 49.1 (2008): 65-89.
“The Antitheatrical Paradox in Michel Marc Bouchard’s Les Feluettes, ou La Répétition d'un drame romantique.” Canadian Literature 188 (2006): 47-61.
“Cognitive Catharsis in The Caucasian Chalk Circle." Modern Drama 49.1 (2006): 12-41. Reprinted in Reading Modern Drama. Ed. Alan Ackerman. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2012. 217-45.
R. Darren Gobert specializes in comparative modern and contemporary Western drama, dramatic and performance theory, and the philosophy of theatre. As a theatre practitioner, he has written stage adaptations and directed plays by Albee, Beckett, Chekhov, and others. From 2015 to 2020, he was the editor of Modern Drama.
His first book, The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater (Stanford UP), was published in 2013; his second, The Theatre of Caryl Churchill (Bloomsbury), in 2014. His current project is a cultural history of catharsis. In support of it, he currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant (2017-2020).
Among Prof. Gobert's honours are the Ann Saddlemyer Prize and the Barnard Hewitt Award for The Mind-Body Stage, the Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching (2008), and the President's University-Wide Teaching Award (2016). He was awarded the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature in 2007.
On leave from York, he is currently William and Sue Gross Professor of Theater Studies and of English at Duke University.
Degrees
Ph.D., English and Comparative Literature, ColumbiaM.Phil, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
M.A., English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
M.A., English, McGill
B.A., French and English, Ottawa
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
Editor, Modern Drama, 2015 - 2020
MLA Drama and Performance Forum Executive Committee, 2018 - 2022
Programming Committee, American Society for Theatre Research, 2019 conference (Arlington)
Research Interests
All Publications
“The Immaterial Matters.” The Public Intellectual and the Culture of Hope. Ed. Joel Faflak and Jason Haslam. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2013. 250-67.
“Arcadia and the Ghosts of Past Performance.” Lectures de Tom Stoppard: Arcadia. Ed. Liliane Campos and Julie Vatain. Rennes, France: Rennes UP, 2011. 147-59.
"On Performance and Selfhood in Caryl Churchill.” The Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill. Ed. Elin Diamond and Elaine Aston. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. 105-24.
“Dramatic Catharsis, Freudian Hysteria, and the ‘Private Theatre’ of Anna O.” Emotions: A Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Jennifer Harding and E. Deidre Pribram. New York: Routledge, 2009. 321-35.
“Historicizing Emotion: The Case of Freudian Hysteria and Aristotelian Purgation.” Emotion, Place and Culture. Ed. Mick Smith et al. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009. 57-76.
Review of Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious by Maria Turri. Theatre Research International 43.2 (2018): 228-29.
Review of The First Frame: Theatre Space in Enlightenment France by Pannill Camp. Theatre Journal 67.4 (2015): 761-62.
Review of The Persistence of Allegory: Drama and Neoclassicism from Shakespeare to Wagner by Jane K. Brown. Modern Philology 107:3 (2010): E45-48.
The Theatre of Caryl Churchill. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2013.
Recent British Drama. Edited special issue of Modern Drama 50.3 (2007).
"The Field of Modern Drama, or Arcadia." Modern Drama 58.3 (2015): 285-301.
“Behaviorism, Catharsis, and the History of Emotion." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 26.2 (2012): 109-25.
"Finding a Physical Language, Directing for the Nineties Generation: In Conversation with James Macdonald.” New Theatre Quarterly 24.2 (2008): 141-57.
“Cartesian Subjectivity on the Neoclassical Stage; or, Molière Acts Corneille for Louis XIV.” Theatre Survey 49.1 (2008): 65-89.
“The Antitheatrical Paradox in Michel Marc Bouchard’s Les Feluettes, ou La Répétition d'un drame romantique.” Canadian Literature 188 (2006): 47-61.
“Cognitive Catharsis in The Caucasian Chalk Circle." Modern Drama 49.1 (2006): 12-41. Reprinted in Reading Modern Drama. Ed. Alan Ackerman. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2012. 217-45.
