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Associate Professor Ian Maxwell

Maxwell image



Diploma of Arts, Dramatic Arts (DADA) Victorian College of the Arts 1990
BA (Honours) University of Sydney 1991
PhD University of Sydney 1997



Room S108A, Woolley Building, A20 Manning Rd

+61 2 9351 6847

Ian Maxwell is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts School of Drama, where he majored in Directing. Subsequent to that training, he embarked upon academic work at the University of Sydney, where he completed his PhD–an ethnography of Hip Hop culture in the suburbs of Sydney in the 1990s–in 1997.

Ian teaches a range of units of study: two second year units: the core introductory unit PRFM 2601: Being There and PRFM 2604: Sociology of Theatre, a third year option, PRFM 3606: Theories of Acting and an Honours seminar on Critical Theory and Performance.

He has published extensively on a range of topics, including his 2003 book, "Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes": Hip Hop Down Under Comin' Upper (Wesleyan), chapters in several collections and a number of journals.

Ian is Chair of the University’s Human Research Ethics Committee and Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He is also President of the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies and a Vice-President of Performance Studies international.

In 2008 he was awarded the Marlis Thiersch Prize for research excellence in an English-language article published anywhere in the world in the broad field of theatre and performance studies for his essay on Victor Turner (see below).

Outside the University Ian divides his time between his family (which includes two beautiful daughters, Mia and Zoe), racing yachts and regularly screaming himself hoarse at the Sydney Swans.

Research areas

  • Popular music and subcultures
  • Phenomenology and Theories of Acting
  • Sociology of the Field of Performance Making
  • Australian Theatre and Performance History 1968-1974
  • Theatre Directing
  • Sport and Performance

Selected publications - Books

  • 2009 "A Raffish Experiment": The Writings of Rex Cramphorn Sydney, Currency Press
  • 2008 Editor Being There: Proceedings of the 2006 Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies Access here
  • 2007 Co-editor (with John Clark and Peter MacCallum) Australian Arts: Where the Bloody Hell Are You? University of Sydney Press/RIHSS.
  • 2003 "Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes": Hip Hop Down Under Comin' Upper Wesleyan.
    See Phat Reviews:
    Tom Solomon at IASPM or download pdf
    Kurt Iveson in Perfect Beat link or download pdf
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Selected publications - Chapters and Articles

2009
“A Heterodox View From Sydney: Rex Cramphorn and the New Wave” in Double Dialogues Special Issue: Enter the New Wave (in press)

2008
“‘All exercise sessions to take place in complete silence’: Performance Syndicate and the rise and fall of the Grotowskian ideal 1969-1974” in Australasian Drama Studies 53: Lineages, Techniques, Training and Tradition October 2008: 17-41

“’Who Were You?’ The Visible and the Visceral” in Bleeker, Maaike (ed) Anatomy Alive: Performance and the Operating Theatre Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, pp49-66.

“The Ritualisation of Performance (Studies)” in St John, Graeme (ed) Victor Turner and Cultural Performance New York: Berghahn, pp59-75.

“There's No There There” in Bloustein, Gerry (ed) Sonic Synergies Music, Technology, Community, Identity Hampshire: Ashgate, pp79-90.

2007
"Advocating Australian Arts" in Clark, MacCallum and Maxwell (eds) Australian Arts: Where the Bloody Hell Are You? University of Sydney Press/RIHSS

2006 "'Runnin’ Amok': An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Penrith, Western Sydney" in McAuley (ed) Contested Ground: Performance and the Politics of Place Peter Lang, Brussels

2006
"Parallel Evolution: Performance Studies at the University of Sydney" in The Drama Review Spring 2006, Vol. 50, No. 1 (T189), Pages 33-45 link to abstract and download

2005
"When Worlds Collide: A Subculture Writes Back" Perfect Beat: The Pacific Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture v7 n2 January 2005: 3-19

"Rex Cramphorn" in Fifty Key Directors (edited by Shomit Mitter and Maria Shevtsova), Routledge, London and New York, pp 178-185

"Jim Sharman" in Fifty Key Directors (edited by Shomit Mitter and Maria Shevtsova), Routledge, London and New York, pp 212-217

"Neil Armfield" in Fifty Key Directors (edited by Shomit Mitter and Maria Shevtsova), Routledge, London and New York, pp 236-242

2004
"More than 'Dead Pet Acting': Legacies of Stanislavsky" in Sydney Studies in English Volume 30: 93-110 find on-line.

2003
"The Curse of Fandom" in Popular Music Studies: International Perspectives Hesmondhalgh, David and Keith Negus (eds) London: Arnold, pp 103-116

2002
"Retrospecting: the Midday Movie and the History of Australian Painting" in Laura Ginters and Barbara Campbell (eds) Flesh Winnow Sydney: Power Publications

2001
"Acting and the Limits of Professional Craft Knowledge" in Practice Knowledge and Expertise in the Health Professions Higgs, Joy, and Angie Titchen (eds) Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann

"Sydney Stylee: Hip Hop Down Under Comin' Up" in Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA Tony Mitchell (ed) Wesleyan University Press, 2001, pp259-279

"Learning in/through Crisis" in Australasian Drama Studies 39 (October 2001): 43-57

Other publications

  • "'Breathing Honey': Authority, Metaphor and Embodiment in Actor Training" in JEDA (Journal of Education in Drama Association) Volume 14, Issue 2, 2008: 5-15.
  • "Another menace to lead the youth astray" in The Australian, November 17th, 2006 link
  • "The Middle Years: Death Defing Theatre Transformed" for The Critical Dialogues Project Urban Theatre Projects
  • "The once and future Performance Space" in RealTime 64, Jan-Feb 2005 link
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Current projects

  • Inventing Tradition: Nationalist/Militarist Display and the Australian Football League
    A contribution to the 'Sport as Performance' research cluster
    Supported by 2007 R and D Research Grant

Areas of Teaching

  • PRFM 2601 Being There (Semester 2, 2009)
  • PRFM 2604 Sociology of Theatre (Semester 1, 2009)
  • PRFM 3606 Theories of Acting (Semester 2, 2009)
  • PRFM4000/PRFM 5901 Critical Theory and Performance (Semester 1, 2009)

Research Degree Supervision

Current PhD projects

  • Kath Bicknell "Off the Saddle: Sport as a live(d) event"
  • Cassie Duell "Vision and Vernacular: implications of origin for the contemporary Australian theatre director"
  • Robin Dixon "Implied Theories of Acting in the Late Roman Republic"
  • Nicholas Hope "Inner Place: the impact of climate and landscape on performance"

Completed PhD supervisions

  • Daniel Johnston 2008 "Active Metaphysics: Phenomenological Readings of Acting"
  • Yana Taylor 2007 "Doctors of Presence: Tadashi Suzuki's Training Methods in Sydney Contemporary Performance
  • Pauline Manley 2007 "Opening the Pod: Involution and Dehiscence in Contemporary Dance"
  • Stuart Grant 2007 "Gathering to Witness"
  • Paul Moore 2005 "Longing to Belong: Trained Actors' Attempts to Enter the Profession"
  • Mark Seton, 2004 "Forming (In)Vulnerable Bodies: Intercorporeal Experiences in Actor Training in Australia"
  • Glen McGillivray, 2004 "Theatricality: A Critical Genealogy"
  • Jeff Stewart 2007 "Sentiment and the Possibility of Love: Essays from Home" (M.Arts dissertation)
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