Professor Deirdre Heddon
- James Arnott Chair in Drama (Theatre, Film & Television Studies)
- Interim Dean of Learning and Teaching (Arts & Humanities Senior Management)
telephone:
01413303810
email:
Deirdre.Heddon@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns:
She/her/hers
Room 329 Gilmorehill Halls, Theatre Studies, Gilmorehill Halls, Glasgow G12 8QQ
Biography
I received my doctoral degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Glasgow in 1999.
From 1998-2005 I was a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter.
I returned to Glasgow in 2005, was promoted to Professor in 2012, and was appointed to the James Arnott Chair in Drama in 2015. The Chair of Drama was founded in 1972 and renamed in 1996 in memory of its first incumbent, James Fullarton Arnott (1914-1982). Arnott founded the Department of Drama at the University of Glasgow in 1966.
I have held a range of leadership positions in the College of Arts and Humanities, including Head of Theatre Studies, Dean of Graduate Studies, interim Dean of Learning & Teaching and Deputy Head of College. I was founding Dean/Director of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities/AHRC DTP Scotland from 2014-2020. I served as a member of REF 2021 Sub-panel UoA 33: Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies.
Research interests
My doctoral research focused on feminism and live art and my commitment to contemporary performance and theatre practices persists. I remain interested in the use of personal stories - auto/biograpies in all their relational dynamics. Significant publications include Devising Performance: A Critical History (Palgrave Macmillan 2005), co-authored with Jane Milling, Autobiography and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan 2008), The National Review of Live Art 1979 - 2010: A Personal History - essays, anecdotes, drawings and images (New Moves International 2010), Histories and Practices of Live Art, co-edited with Jennie Klein (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) and It’s All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells, co-edited with Dominic Johnson (Intellect and LADA 2016).
Another enduring interest has been walking aesthetics (walking art & creative walking), with the publication of numerous articles alongside practice-based research (see, for example 40 Walks, and Walking, Writing and Performance: Autobiographical Texts, ed. Roberta Mock (Intellect Books 2009). My creative research project, The Walking Library, a collaboration with Professor Misha Myers (University of Plymouth), was initiated in 2012. We have curated numerous commissioned editions of The Walking Library for different organisations, including Sideways Festival (Belgium), Glasgow Life, and The National Forest Company. I was PI on an AHRC Covid-19 Rapid Response project, WalkCreate, collaborating with Harry Wilson (University of Bristol), Clare Qualmann (University of East London), Morag Rose (University of Bristol) and Maggie O'Neill (University College Cork).
I am co-editor, with Sally Mackey (Emeritus Professor, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama) of an international series, Performing Landscapes (Palgrave Macmillan). Books published include Performing Mountains, Performing Ruins, Performing Farmscapes, and Performing Ice. I am currently working on Performing Forests. If you have a proposal for this series, please do get in touch.
The series Performing Landscapes connects to my interest in the relationships between performance and ecology/environmentalism. This is threaded through my walking scholarship and also, more recently, my work on a UKRI Treescapes project, newLEAF. Collaborating with Chris Fremantle (Grays School of Art) and Rachel Clive (University of Glasgow), we have explored the place of uncertainty in artists' work with living forests. A key outcome of our workpackage has also been the verbatim play, Three Words for Forest, which draws on interviews with 30 forestry practitioners to share insights on decision making in the face of deep uncertainty. We are also leading an RSE funded network, newLEAVES.
Grants
External
- 2023: Royal Society of Edinburgh, CoI £25,000
- 2022: UKRI Treescapes, newLEAF, Col £125,000
- 2021: AHRC Covid19 Rapid Response, Walking Publics/Walking Arts, PI £356,760
- 2019: AHRC NPIF Fellowships £220,000
- 2019: AHRC DTP2 Scotland £17,000,000
- 2019: SFC SGSAH £1,000,200
- 2018: AHRC NPIF Fellowships £220,000
- 2018: AHRC Innovative Placements £90,000
- 2018: AHRC AI Studentships £200,000
- 2018: Creative Scotland (CI) £20,000
- 2017: AHRC Creative Economies Fellowships £250,000
- 2017: AHRC NPIF Studentships, £990,000
- 2015: AHRC Policy Development £28,000
- 2015: Creative Scotland (PI) £13,800
- 2015: Arches, NTS, BAC, STR, LADA £7,400
- 2014: Scottish Funding Council (PI) £1,800,800
- 2014: AHRC Connected Communities Showcase (CI), £20,000
- 2014: PI, AHRC, Being Human Festival, £1,500
- 2014: AHRC DTP Scotland (PI) £14,200,000
- 2012: AHRC Walking Interconnections (CI) £31,744
- 2012: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award £54,504
- 2012: AHRC Skills Development £59,200
- 2012: AHRC Skills Development £40,000
- 2012: Carnegie £1620
- 2008-09: British Academy Small Grants £2474
- 2007-10: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award £50,000
- 2006-09: AHRC Creative Fellowship (Adrian Howells) £170,266
- 2005/6: AHRC Research Leave Scheme £14,000
Internal
- 2024: AHRC Impact Accelerator Account, £7,000
- 2024: Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund, £25,000
- 2023: AHRC Impact Accelerator Account, £7,000
Supervision
I welcome PhD proposals, including practice research, in the following areas:
- Walking art/creative walking
- Autobiographical and documentary forms of performance
- Live and performance art
- Ecological/environmental/site responsive performance
- Delaney, Lori
Performing Breast Cancer Stories: Disrupting Narratives and Constructing Selves - Hassall, Lee
More Than a Passing Pleasure: Performing Transmatic Landscapes in Dorothy Wordsworth’s 1803 Tour Of Scotland.
Past supervisions
- Harry Wilson, 'Roland Barthes, Theatre and Photography'.
- Leila Riszko, 'Breaching Bodily Boundaries'.
- Sarah Hopfinger, 'Performance (in) ecology: A practice-based approach’
- Cara Berger, ‘Lacanian Feminist Theory in Relation to Postdramatic Performance Practice'
- Lucy Amsden, ‘The Teacher and the Clown – the Pedagogy of Philippe Gaulier’
- Clare Louise Duffy, 'Practice as Research: Writing a Queer Aesthetic'
- David Overend, 'Underneath the Arches: Developing a relational performance aesthetic in response to a specific cultural site'
- Laura Bissell, 'The Posthuman Body in Performance’
- Rachel Clive, 'Geodiversity and human difference: disability, landscape form and process'
- Jenny Knotts, 'Play/writing histories: investigating the dramaturgical potential of architectural drawing practices in exploring the hidden histories of built spaces. An architextural study of the Citizens Theatre'
- Irene Ros, 'Performing Stragismo and Counter-spectacularisation: Italian right-wing Terrorism and Its Legacies’
Teaching
I teach across all Programme levels, offering courses in my specialist areas and contributing to several team taught courses. Teaching has included:
- Autobiography and Performance (Hons)
- Documentary Theatre (Hons)
- Postcolonial Encounters (Hons)
- Scottish Theatre (MLitt THeatre Studies)
- Reading the Stage (Level 1)
- Theatre and Society (Level 1)
Professional activities & recognition
Prizes, awards & distinctions
- 2005: Public Engagement (RSE)
Grant committees & research advisory boards
- 2009 - 2019: Arts and Humanities Research Council, Peer Review College
- 2020 - 2021: Research Excellence Framework, UoA32
Editorial boards
- 2012: Research in Drama Education
- 2010: Performing Ethos
- 2005: Studies in Theatre and Performance
- 2012: Contemporary Theatre and Performance
Professional & learned societies
- 2023: Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh
Additional information
I have held a number of senior management positions including Dean of Graduate Studies and Deputy Head of the College of Arts. I was the founding Director of the Scottish Graduate School for the Arts & Humanities (SGSAH), the first and only such national graduate school in the world. The SGSAH, founded in 2014, is co-funded by the Scottish Funding Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. A membership organisation, it serves 16 HEIs across Scotland and works in partnership with more than 100 organisations across all sectors. SGSAH also manages the AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership which supports doctoral funding across Scotland. I am currently a member of Senate and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where I serve on the Public Engagement Committee. I sit on the Advisory Board for RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance (Routledge) and am a Trustee of Scottish Youth Theatre. I have previously been a Trustee for Take Me Somewhere and The Arches, a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, and served on the REF 2021 Sub-pabel UoA33.
Awards
It’s All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells, co-edited with Dominic Johnson, won the 2018 TaPRA Research Prize for Editing (Essay Collections and Special Issues).