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List of contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Penny Arcade
Preface Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier
1. Dragging up the Past - Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier
2. ‘Once upon a time, there was a tavern’: metadrag and other uses of the past at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - Ben Walters
3. Camp and Drag in the Mainstream: A Critical Study of the Phenomenon of Drag performance in the Northern British Fun Pubs, 1973-1993 - Chris D’Dray
4. Soldiers in Skirts: Cross-Dressing Ex-Servicemen, Sexuality, and Censorship in Post-War Britain - Jacob Bloomfield
5. Kinging the Stage: Male impersonators and drag kings, exploring shared historical narratives - Stephen Farrier
6. A Kiss that Breaks the Spell: Japanese “Drag Kings” and the Homosocial Culture of the Takarazuka Revue - Isabelle coy-dibley
7. Camp can be such a drag: Approaches to understanding camp and drag - Simon Dodi
8. Vonni Diva: Showgirl - Rosslyn Prosser
9. FagHag Drag: Penny Arcade’s Archive of Otherness - Joseph Mercier with Penny Arcade
10. Nobody’s Trash: Holly Woodlawn’s Puerto Rican Drag and the Subversion of Authorship - Gabriel Mayora
11. Bibi is a Sissy: Drag, Death by Silence and the Journey to Self-Determination - Nando Messias
12. Mother Sally and The Fig Leaf: Re/Productions of A Carnival Character in Barbados - Nick Ishmael-Perkins
13. The Buttcracker: Dragging Ballet into Queer Places - Mark Edward and Helen Newall
14. Oh wow! He’s queer! Queering Panto in Belfast: An Interview with Ross Anderson-Doherty - Alyson Campbell and Trish McTighe
15. Wicked Queens of Pantoland - Simon Sladen
Index
About the author
Dr Mark Edward is a pracademic and Reader in Creative Arts at Edge Hill University, UK. His publications include Mesearch and the Performing Body (2018) besides book chapters for Oxford University Press, Springer, Sage, and Supernova Books. Professionally he has worked for Rambert Dance Company and performed with the renowned American performance artist Penny Arcade in her seminal work 'Bad Reputation' (2004) and in Jeremy Goldstein’s ‘Truth to Power Café’ (2018). Mark is also the writer and producer of the immersive performance and film installation ‘Council House Movie Star’ (2012) featuring his drag persona Gale Force.Dr Stephen Farrier is Reader in Theatre and Performance, at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. With Alyson Campbell has has co-edited Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (2015) as well as a themed edition of RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance named the ‘Gender and Sexuality Issue’.
Summary
Drawing on rich interdisciplinary research that has laced the emerging subject of drag studies as an academic discipline, this book examines how drag performance is a political, socio-cultural practice with a widespread lineage throughout the history of performance. This volume maps the multi-threaded contexts of contemporary practices while rooting them in their fabulous historical past and memory.
The book examines drag histories and what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. Featuring work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, this book allows the reader to engage with a range of archival research including camp and history; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; the connections between drag king and queen history; queering pantomime performance; drag and military veterans; Puerto Rican drag performers and historical film.
Foreword
The chapters in the book not only examine drag histories, but also what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. It features work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados.
Additional text
From its playful title right through to its pantomimic concluding chapter, Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories is an exuberant, informed romp through the history of this most transgressive, protean, and wonderfully queer art form. Editors Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier have done a fabulous job in bringing together a panoply of academics, commentators, practitioners, and activists to cast some important light onto drag’s complex and fascinating past.
