Publications (Academic)

*If you are unable to access any of the material listed below please email me at k.beswick@exeter.ac.uk and I’ll be more than happy to share a copy with you.

You can also read some of my publications by request at Research Gate. Click here.*

Books

co-written with Murray, C. (2022). Making Hip Hop Theatre: Beatbox and Elements. London. Bloomsbury Methuen.

collaboration with Murray, C. (2022) Beats and Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy. London. Bloomsbury Methuen.

(2019). Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and off Stage. London: Bloomsbury Methuen. (Shortlisted for the 2019 Theatre and Performance Association Early Career Research Prize).

Scholarly Editions

(2023) Educating Rita by Willy Russell. Student Edition. London: Bloomsbury Methuen.

(2021). Rita, Sue and Bob Too by Andrea Dunbar. Modern Classics. London. Bloomsbury Methuen.

(2020). Wasted by Kate Tempest. Student Edition. London: Bloomsbury Methuen.

Edited Special Issues

(2020). Housing, Performance and Activism. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 40(1). (Shortlisted for the 2021 Theatre and Performance Association Editing Prize).

co-edited with Parmar, M. and Sil, E. (eds) (2015). Re-evaluating the Postcolonial City: Production, Reconstruction, Representation. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. 17(6).

Book Chapters and Sections

(2023). Performance Poetry. in The Methuen Drama Encyclopedia of Modern Theatre. ed: Colin Chambers. London: Bloomsbury Methuen.

(2021). Class, Race and Marginality: Informal Street Performances in the City. Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance. eds: Milija Gluhovic, Silvija Jestrovic, Shirin M. Rai, and Michael Saward. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

(2020). Jordan McKenzie: Three Works. Live Art in the UK: Contemporary Performances of Precarity. ed. Maria Chatzichristodoulou. London: Bloomsbury Methuen. 155-171.

(2018). Live Art and the Body. Franko B. ed. Adam Young. Leeds: Unbound. 48-53.

(2016). The Council Estate as Hood: SPID Theatre Company and Grass-roots Arts Practice as Cultural Politics. Performing (for) Survival. ed Patrick Duggan and Lisa Peschel. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillian. 163-184.

Journal Articles

(2022). Staging Grenfell: The Ethics of Representing Housing Crises in London. Canadian Theatre Review. 191.

(2022). High Rise eState of Mind: Love and honesty in the midst of London’s neoliberal housing crisis. Comparative Drama. 56 (1). 125-149.

co-written with Johnson, J. (2021). Sounds of the City: Dramaturgy, Space, Identity. Critical Stages/Scènes critiques. 24.

(2020) Feeling Working-Class: Affective Class Identification and its Implications for Overcoming Inequality. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 40 (3). 265-274.

(2020) Slaggy Mums: Class, Single Motherhood, and Performing Endurance. Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism. 18. (Winner of the Working Class Studies Association’s Russo & Linkon Award for Best Published Article or Essay for Academic or General Audiences for work produced in 2020).

(2020). Capitalist Realism: Glimmers, Working-Class Authenticity and Andrea Dunbar in the 21st Century. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics. 16(1). 75-89.

(2020). Housing, Performance and Activism: Thinking with Performance in Times of Crisis. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 40(1). 1-10. (Editorial).

(2018). Playing to Type: Industry and Invisible Training in the National Youth Theatre’s ‘Playing Up 2’. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training. 9(1). 4-18.

(2016). Ten in a Bed: Literacy, Intermediality and the Potentials of Low-Tech. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre. 21(3). 337-348.

(2016). A Trialectical Cusp: Between the Real and the Represented:  At the Bus Stop in SPID Theatre Company’s 23176. Performance Research ‘On Dialectics’. 21(3). 27-36.

co-written Hawkins, H., and Kohlmaier J. (2016). The road to Epidaurus is like the road to creation: Tapping the urban archive. Cultural Geographies. 23(3). 545-552.

(2015). Ruin Lust and the Council Estate: Nostalgia and Ruin in Arinze Kene’s God’s Property. Performance Research ‘On Ruins and Ruination’. 20(3). 29-38.

co-written with Parmar, M. and Sil, E. (2015). Towards a Spatial Practice of the Postcolonial City. Interventions special issue: Re-evaluating the Postcolonial City: Production, Reconstruction, Representation. 17(6). 789-801. (Editorial).

(2014). Bola Agbaje’s Off the Endz: Authentic Voices, Representing the Council Estate: Authorship and the Ethics of Representation. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English. 2(1). 97-122.

co-written with Bell, C. (2014). Authenticity and Representation: Council Estate Plays at the Royal Court. New Theatre Quarterly. 30(2). 120-135.

(2012). A Place for Opportunity: The Block, representing the Council Estate in a youth theatre setting. Journal of Applied Arts and Health. 2(3). 289-302.

(2011). The Council Estate: Representation, Space and the Potential for Performance. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre. 16(3). 421-435.

co-written with Bannon, F., Duncan H. P. Laycock, K. Preece, K.Walter (2010). Architects of the Invisible: Play with a City in ‘The Blackboard Dances’ Leeds, UK, 8th October 2010. Proximity. 13(3). 10-15.

 Blog Posts and Short Articles

(2022). Young Hearts Podcast. Review and Reflections. Heart of Glass Online.

(2022). Women Working Class Podcast. Critical Reflections. Women Working Class Online Resource.

(2021). Women Working Class: Opening Thoughts. Women Working Class Online Resource.

(2020). The Performative Violence of the Wedding Dress: Teaching Queer Theory through Object Orientation. Theatre Topics. 30(2). Online.

(2020). Hip hop and ‘Relevance’: Introducing Kate Tempest’s Wasted to the classroom. Bloomsbury Education Blog.

(2019). Notes from the Rehearsal Room: Rage at the Margins. Contemporary Theatre Review. Backpages 29(4). 487-501.

(2015). ‘X’ – Realism, Fantasy and Heroism in the National Youth Theatre’s The Block. Points and Practices. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre. 20(2). 177-181.

Book Reviews

(2020). Tragedy Since 9/11: Reading a World out of Joint. Studies in Theatre and Performance.

(2018). Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 

(2017). Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship: Absent Others. Performing Ethos. 7(1)

(2017). Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes. Studies in Theatre and Performance.

(2016). African Theatre 14: Contemporary Women. Studies in Theatre and Performance.

(2016). Performing Site Specific Theatre: Politics, Place, Practice. Theatre and Performance Design. 1(3). 272-273.

Conference Presentations 

‘Being Slaggy/Representing Slaggyness: Sex, Class and Embodiment in Britain’. Working-Class Studies: An Interdisciplinary Conference. Irish Working-Class Studies. Online/Dublin. 8-12 November 2021.

‘Sex, Lies and Difficult Truth in Cash Carraway’s Skint Estate‘. 2021 MLA Annual Convention. Modern Languages Association. Online. 7-10th January 2021.

‘Slags on Stage: The Toxic Working-Class Female in Contemporary Theatre and Performance’ at Cultures of Toxicity. University of Warwick (in collaboration with Royal Holloway). Warwick. 8th November 2019.

British Academy ‘Cities in the Literary Imagination’ UK-China Early Career Collaboration Workshop. Fudan University. Shanghai. 27-28th September 2019. (Awarded British Academy funding to attend and participate).

‘Litefeet: Democracy and Social Media’ at Performance and Culture: Cities, Embodiments, Technologies. University of Malta. Malta. 7-9 March 2018.

‘Is this love? Performance on the Streets of New York’ at Between Spaces. University of Chichester. Chichester. 29-30th June 2017.

‘”We’re what makes this city great” Sanctioning “Informal” Performance Practice: IT’S SHOWTIME NYC, a case study’ at TaPRA. University of Bristol. Bristol. 5-7 September 2016.

‘A Box Park to Live in’ Hoxton PrivateHousing/Public Home, an interactive performance session. Home in the Housing Crisis. Geffrye Museum. London. 22 April 2016.

Panel member at Estate: A Reverie screening. Centre of Studies for Home. Queen Mary University of London. London. 21 April 2016.

‘Litefeet: YouTube, Instagram and the Democratising Potential of Social Media Platforms’ at ACLA Annual Meeting. Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass. 17-20 March 2016.

‘The Resident Artist: Making Performance in Your Council Estate Home’ for Institute of Historical Research, Studies of Home Series. Senate House. London. 2 December 2015.

‘Working Class Voices: Authorship, Authenticity and Politics in Council Estate Plays’ at Whatever Happened to the Working Class: Rediscovering Class Consciousness in Contemporary Literature. Senate House. London. 17th September 2015.

‘Litefeet. Making it Work: Dancing for Money in New York City’ at Thinking Dance 2015: Questioning the Contemporary. Leeds Beckett. Leeds. 16-17 September 2015.

‘The Non-Practitioner Researcher: Ethics and Opportunities in Applied Theatre Research’ at TaPRA. University of Worcester. Worcester. 8-10 September 2015.

‘The Resident Artist: Jordan McKenzie’s Council Estate Practice’ at Performing Place 3 University of Chichester. Chichester. 19-20 June 2015.

Panel member on ‘The City as Archive’ at Performing Urban Archives. Queen Mary University of London. London. 10 June 2015.

Chair and organiser of ‘Activism, Property, Performance’ panel at Peopling the Palace(s). Queen Mary University of London. London. 3 June 2015.

Panel member on ‘Council Estate Performance’ at Look at the (E)state We’re In. Peckham Liberal Club. London. 29 May 2015.

‘The Resident Artist: Jordan McKenzie’s Council Estate Practice’ at Home and Art: Creating, Performing and Researching Home. Geffrye Museum and Centre of Studies for Home. London. 2 May 2015.

‘The Council Estate as Hood: Grass roots arts practice as cultural politics’ at Quorum. Queen Mary University of London. London. 11 February 2015.

‘”X” Fantasy and Heroism in the National Youth Theatre’s The Block‘ at TaPRA. Royal Holloway. London. 3-5 September 2014.

’21st Century Conceptions of the Council Estate in Performance: Dominant, Residual, Emergent’ at What Happens Now: 21st Century Writing in English? University of Lincoln. Lincoln. 14-17 July 2014.

‘”Ruin Lust” Nostalgia and Ruin in Arinze Kene’s God’s Property’ at Seeing Like a City. Queen Mary University of London. London. 7 June 2014.

‘Authentic Authors: Politics, Voices and the Ethics of Representation’ at Theatre and Politics: Theatre as Cultural Intervention. The German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama. Prague. 30 May-2 June 2013.

‘The Brutalist Monstrosity of the Council Estate’ at Performing Monstrosity. Queen Mary University of London. London. 1 September 2012.

‘The Spatial Ecology: Park Hill and The National Youth Theatre’s Slick’ at PSi#18: Performance: Culture: Industry. University of Leeds. Leeds. 27 June – 1st July 2012.

‘The Representation of Council Estates in Contemporary Theatre’ at Activating Theatre. University of Leeds. Leeds. 6 March 2012.

‘Authentic Authors: Voices and the Ethics of Representation’ at Authoring Theatre, Central School of Speech and Drama. London. 12 July 2011.

‘The Block: Representations of the relationship between Council Estates and mental health’ at Health Acts. University of Exeter. Exeter. 27-28 April 2011 (Awarded the Glynne Wickham Scholarship to fund attendance at this conference).

‘Who Killed: Romeo and Juliet: Navigating the intercultural exchange’ at The OPENCOV Experiment. University of Leeds. Leeds. 12 February 2011.

‘Transforming the Council Estate: The interplay of screen and stage in SPID Theatre Company’s 23716’ at Technologies of Transmediality. Bristol University. Bristol. 6-8 January 2011.

‘Negotiating the Council Estate’, University of Leeds Postgraduate Conference. University of Leeds. Leeds. 14 December 2010.

‘Social Housing, Space and the Body: the Council Estate in Performance’ at Theatre Applications. Central School of Speech and Drama. London. 22-24 April 2010.

‘Council Estates in Performance: An Interdisciplinary Approach’, Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. University of Cambridge. Cambridge. 28-29 June 2010.