Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Deirdre Osborne

After training as a classical ballet dancer, Deirdre Osborne studied Classics at the University of Melbourne, English Literature at Kings College London and completed her PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London where she also taught. Over the past ten years she has dedicated her research majorly to Black British writing (prose, poetry and drama). She is committed to advocating this work in all areas of her teaching as a matter of social justice. With Professor Joan Anim-Addo of ECL, they will convene a cross-disciplinary MA: Black British Writing, Drama and Performance from 2013 – the first degree in the world that specialises in this field.

Her particular research focus is on debbie tucker green’s innovative dramatic-poetics and women’s experimental writing, investigating generic form and voice in monodrama and what Deirdre terms, “landmark poetics”. (See “Set in Stone: SuAndi and Lemn Sissay’s Landmark Poetics.” in Cass and Grobner eds. Performing Poetry: Race, Place and Gender in Performance Poetry  Rodopi, 2011). In general, Deirdre’s research embraces the Victorian period through to contemporary culture. She aims to retrieve the marginalised voices of the disenfranchised and dispossessed within this wide spectrum of genres and periods. Her ambitions are twofold: to recover a neglected dimension of women’s participation in colonisation by foregrounding a maternal aesthetics; to develop a critical discourse which reconfigures British drama, through archiving and critically analysing the contributions made by black dramatists, poets and performers. Her determination to develop this emerging critical area interactively, is seen in her many interviews with Black British writers over the past decade (see New Theatre Quarterly), and in chairing panels dedicated to discussing their work with them (Royal National Theatre Studio, the Tricycle and Albany Theatres) as well as keynote lectures in Germany and the US. In 2011 she was awarded an AHRC Research Fellowship to complete her monograph, Critically Black: Black British Dramatists and Theatre in the New Millennium (Manchester University Press). Her previous AHRC award was part of the major Diaspora, Migration and Identities AHRC project and she has received two Arts Council of England awards to further her critical writing in this field.

Deirdre initiated the landmark international conference at Goldsmiths (2008), “On Whose Terms?: Critical Negotiations in Black British Literature and the Arts” - a celebration and critical engagement with the field - with Professor Mark Stein (University of Muenster, Germany) and Dr. Godfrey Brandt (Birkbeck College) whom she invited to co-convene the event. http://www.OnWhoseTerms.org. A particular feature of this two-day conference was the opportunity for academics and the public to meet with the writers and practitioners who have been so influential. For the conference she also organised a short story competition in memory of John La Rose (New Beacon Bookers, Caribbean Artists Movement, Radical Book Fair) with judges: (Chair) Margaret Busby OBE, Professor R. Victoria Arana, author Courttia Newland and literary activist, Kadija George. Through her association with Kadija, Goldsmiths hosted a three-day workshop with Dr. Nawal el Sadaawi the celebrated feminist and internationally acclaimed writer (2010). Deirdre’s guest editorship of a Special Issue, “Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing” for Women: A Cultural Review (2009), has led to her editing the first critical anthology of the area, Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing: Contradictions and Heritages. Her edited anthology Hidden Gems (Oberon Books, 2008), launched at the conference, publishes plays by Lemn Sissay, Lennie James, Mojisola Adebayo, Valerie Mason-John, Courttia Newland, and Paul Morris with accompanying critical essays by academics who have long championed this field. A second volume including plays by Kwame Kwei-Armah, Malika Booker, SuAndi, Kofi Agyemang and Patricia Elcock is forthcoming. She hopes that these books will contribute to the recognition, dissemination and longevity of the work of Black British writers. A further important work-in-progress in relation to this aim is with library colleagues, Drs Jacqueline Cooke and Elizabeth Williams - the depositing at Goldsmiths of the Apples and Snakes archive (Britain’s leading performance poetry organisation) for which they successfully received a grant from the Annual Fund, as well as the depositing of the Future Histories archive on Black Theatre.

Her work in late-Victorian literature, focuses upon fin-de-siecle imperialism, colonial ideology, indigenousness and the relationship between maternity and nationhood in Britain and Australia for which she was an Australian Bicentennial Scholar (1999-2000). She also writes about the representations of women and espionage in World War II (See Women A Cultural Review) and this year has written the critical commentary of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (Methuen Classics, 2011). Other literature teaching work includes: the Open University, London South Bank University and the University of Westminster. While deputy Head of Education at HMP Wandsworth she concurrently developed her interests in prison theatre as an actor and Associate Director with Bob Taylor’s Inside Job (Theatre in Prisons Project). In 2001 Roger Graef’s Artistic Convictions television series featured a documentary film about her production of Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba with the women of HMP Holloway, directed by Lucy Fyson.

Inquiries about research supervision are welcome in any of the following areas: performance poetics, trans-generic writing, Black British writing, dramatic poetics, landmark poetics, the late-Victorian period and colonial ideology, woman and war, gender and prisons, motherhood and nation-building. 

Selected publications

Books:

1. Hidden Gems ed. London: Oberon Books, 2008.

2. A Raisin in the Sun ed. Methuen Classics Critical Edition, London: Methuen Books, 2011.

3. Hidden Gems: More Discoveries ed. London: Oberon books, 2012.

4. Modern and Contemporary Black British Theatre eds. Mary Brewer, Lynette Goddard, Deirdre Osborne. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

5. Critically Black: Black British Dramatists and Theatre in the New Millennium University of Manchester Press, (in preparation).

6. Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing: Contradictions and Heritages ed. (in preparation).

7. Inheritors of the Diaspora: Contemporary Black British Poetry, Drama and Prose London: Northcote Press, (in preparation)

8. Bringing up baby: food, nurture and childrearing in late-Victorian literature (in preparation)

 

Chapters in books:

1. “debbie tucker green” in Modern and Contemporary Black British Theatre eds. Mary Brewer, Lynette Goddard, Deirdre Osborne. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

2. “Black British Drama” in A History of British Drama: Developments, Interpretations Baumbach, Sibylle; Neumann, Birgit; Nünning, Ansgar eds. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011.

3.“ How Do We Get the Whole Story?: Contra-dictions and Counter-narratives in debbie tucker green’s dramatic poetics” Tönnies, Merle and Christina Flotmann, eds. Narrative in Drama. Contemporary Drama in English 18. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011.

4. “Set in Stone: SuAndi and Lemn Sissay’s Landmark Poetics.” in Arturo Cass and Cordelia Grobner eds. Performing Poetry: Race, Place and Gender in Performance Poetry Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2011.

5. “Roy Williams” in Martin Middeke and Aleks Sierz eds. Methuen Modern British Playwrights London: Methuen Books, 2011.

6. “I ain’t British though / Yes you are. You’re as English as I am”: Belonging and Unbelonging in Black British Drama” in Ulrike Lindner, Maren Mohring, Mark Stein and Silke Strothe eds., Hybrid Cultures, Nervous States: Britain and Germany in a (Post)Colonial World. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2010. 203-227.

7. Chapter 14. “ ‘Our Mothers, Ourselves’: Staging (I)dentity politics in SuAndi’s The Story of M and Lemn Sissay’s Something Dark” in Charlie Armstrong, Sean Crosson and Anne Karhio eds. Contemporary Poetry in Crisis Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 230-247. 

8. “Lemn Sissay” in R. Victoria Arana ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Black British Writing Sumter, South Carolina:  Bruccoli, Clark, and Layman; & Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 2009. 261-271

9. “Conceiving the Nation: Visions and Versions of Colonial Pre-natality” in Ellen Bayuk Rosenman and Claudia C. Klaver eds. Other Mothers: Beyond the Maternal Ideal Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 2008. 202-226.

10. Chapter 15. “Not ‘in-yer-face’ but what lies beneath: experiential and aesthetic inroads in the drama of debbie tucker green and Dona Daley” in R. Victoria Arana ed. “Black” British Aesthetics Today Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007. 222-242. 

11. “Angela Y. Davis” in Yolanda Page ed. Encyclopaedia of African American Women Writers Vols. I and II.  Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007. 145-8.

12. Staging Indigenous Identities in contemporary Black British Drama. in Christopher Hart ed. Englishness, Differences and Identity West Midlands: Midrash Publishing, 2007.55-61.

13. “Judging a book by its cover: reading, race and the search for identity in Fix Up by Kwame Kwei-Armah” in Susanne Peters, Klaus Stierstorfer, Laurenz Volkmann, eds., Teaching Contemporary Literature and Culture Vol. 2, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2006. 13-29.

14. Chapter.II “Writing Black Back: An Overview of Black Theatre and Performance in Britain” 61-81

15. Chapter.III “The State of the Nation: Contemporary Black British Theatre and the Staging of the UK” 82-100.

in Dimple Godiwala ed. Alternatives Within the Mainstream: British Black and Asian Theatre  Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006.

16. “The State of the Nation: Contemporary Black British theatre and the Staging of the UK”. Staging Displacement, Exile and Diaspora: eds.Christoph Houswitschka and Anja Muller-Muth Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2005. 129-149.

17. “A Recent Look at Black Women Playwrights” in Kadija George ed. Six Black and Asian Women Playwrights (1996) London: Aurora Metro, 2005. 15-20.

 

Edited Journal Special Issue:

1.“Longevity and Critical Legitimacy: The ‘So-called’ Literary Tradition Versus the ‘Actual’ Cultural Network ” 239-249.

2. ed.“Andrea Levy in Conversation with Blake Morrison” 325-338.

in Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing ed. Deirdre Osborne. Special Issue for Women: A Cultural Review Vol.20; No.3 December, 2009.

 

Refereed academic articles:

1. “debbie tucker green e Dona Daley: duas dramaturgas britânicas negras do novo milênio” : “debbie tucker green and Dona Daley: Two Neo-millennial Black British Women Playwrights” ANTARES, Lettras e Huamidades n°4 – Jul/Dez 2010. 25-56.

2. “No Straight Answers: Writing on the Margins, Reclaiming Heroes” New Theatre Quarterly  Vol. XXV, Part 1 February, 2009. 6-21.

3. “Bequest to the Nation: Michael Bhim and Kwame Kwei-Armah at Cross Purposes

 and Cross Roads” (forthcoming)

4. “ ‘Know Whence you Came’: Dramatic Art and Black British Identity” New Theatre Quarterly Vol. XXIII Part 3 August, 2007 253-263.

5.“Writing Black Back: An Overview of Black Theatre and Performance in Britain” in Studies in Theatre Performance Vol.26 No.1, Jan. 2006 13-31.

6. “ ‘I do not know about politics or governments...I am a housewife’: the female secret agent and the male war machine in Occupied France (1942-1945)” Women: a Cultural Review Special Issue Women and War, Vol.17, no.1 Spring, 2006. 42-64.

7.“In Celebration of Dona Daley” in Sable: Black Literary Mag Autumn/Fall 2004.Issue 5. 56-9.

 

Review articles:

1. “Feminist Stages and Subaltern Sightlines” Contemporary Women’s Writing (forthcoming, 2011)

2. “Fair trade?: debbie tucker green and sex tourism” Wasfiri Issue 53, Spring 2008 81-2.

3. “Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Elmina’s Kitchen ” Wasafiri Issue 46 Winter 2005 76.

 

Book Reviews:

1. British Asian Theatre by Dominic Hingorani Contemporary Theatre Review (forthcoming,

    2011)

2. “Limiting Perspectives: Methuen’s Contemporary Drama Anthologies and the Canon”

     in New Theatre Quarterly (forthcoming, 2011)

3. Staging Black Feminisms by Lynette Goddard in Contemporary Theatre Review Vol.18, February 2008. 123-124.

4.  Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain

     by Gabriele Griffin

    Poetry Off the Page: Twentieth-Century British Women Poets in  Performance by Laura Severin

    in Wasafiri Issue 44, Spring 2005. 71

5. Dogside Story Patricia Grace Sable: Black Literary Mag Issue 5, Autumn/Fall 2004. 113

 

Conference Papers Given:

1998

First New Woman Conference: Gendering the Fin-de-Siecle Institute of English Studies, University of London Paper: “Imperial Housekeeping: Domestic Revisions in the Australian Colonial Context”

Colonial (Dis)continuities Legacies of Empire in Modern Literature Worchester College of Higher Education Paper: “Conceiving the Nation: Representations of Colonial M(other)hood in Fin-de-siecle Australian Literature”

Consumption, Fantasy, Desire and Success University of Liverpool

Paper: “Ida B. Wells and Angela Davis: Black ‘New’ Women

 

1999

Gender and Commonwealth Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Paper: “A Literary Perspective on Australian Motherhood in the 1890s”

Victorian Crime and Society University of London, Chair “Women in Prisons”

Whose Theatre is it Anyway? Performance, Politics and Community University of Wolverhampton

Paper: “Gender Relations, Drama and the Prison Space”

 

2000

Feminist Forerunners: The New Woman and the International Periodical Press Manchester University. Paper: “Ida B. Wells: A Black New Woman currently out-of-print”

The Black Gaze University of London

Paper: “Coursing into the Mainstream: Recent Black British Fiction and its Critical Reception”

 

2001

The Politics of Gender and Education: third international conference Institute of Education, University of London. Paper: “Gender and Gaols: Some Critical Reflections upon Educational Praxis”

Memory, Gender and War University of London

Paper: “Secret Subversions: the Female Spy in life, Film and Literature (France 1940-45)”

 

2002

Retrieving the 1940s University of Leeds

Paper: “Secrets and Lies: Women Spies and their counterfeits in 1940s Occupied France”

 

2003

Cartographies of Corporeality ACLA Conference San Marco, California, USA.

Paper: “Conceiving the Nation: representations of late-nineteenth-century women and pregnancy in George Egerton and Barbara Baynton”

 

2004

Playing Australia Annual American Association for Australian Literary Studies, New York.

Paper: “BlackOUT – acts of ventriloquism and authenticity in representing indigenous women from Katie Langloh Parker to Leah Purcell”

Staging Displacement, Exile and Diaspora German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English, Bamberg. Paper: “The State of the Nation – Contemporary Black British Drama and the Staging of the UK”

Interventionist Theatre , University of Leeds.  Paper: “The Body of Experience: Women Behind Bars in Contemporary British Drama”

Literary London Institute of English Studies, University of London. Paper “Not so lonely anymore: contemporary Black British writers and the legacy of Sam Selvon”

Cooking Culture: Food and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century Institute of English Studies, University of London. Paper: “Bringing up baby: food, nurture and childrearing at home and abroad”

 

2005

International Conference for Englishness Studies University College, Winchester. Paper. “ ‘I ain’t British though / Yes you are. You’re as English as I am’: Staging Indigenous Identities in contemporary Black British Drama.”

 

2006

“Black” British Aesthetics Today: The Howard University Symposium Howard University, Washington D.C. Paper: “Not ‘in-yer-face’ but what lies beneath: experiential and aesthetic inroads in the drama of debbie tucker green and Dona Daley”

Ravenhill Ten Years On Goldsmiths, University of London. Chair: “Promiscuous Dramaturgies”

 

2007

Association for Theatre in Higher Education Annual Conference, New Orleans USA. Black Theatre Association Panel: “Aesthetic Choices and Diasporic Voices: Three Black Dramatists in Britain Today” (with Mr. Gabriel Gbadamosi). Paper: “Passing the Baton in Athletic Poetics: debbie tucker green's Linguistic Legacy”

Hybrid Cultures, Nervous States: Insecurity and Anxiety in Britain and Germany in a (Post)Colonial World. University of Muenster, Germany Paper: “Blackness and (Un)Belonging in Britain”.

Tenth Nordic Conference for English Studies, University of Bergen, Norway. Contemporary Poetry Panel. Paper: “ ‘Our Mothers, Ourselves’: Staging (I)dentity politics in SuAndi’s

The Story of M and Lemn Sissay’s Something Dark” 

Renewals: Refiguring University English in the 21^st Century, Royal Holloway, University of London. Paper: “The Body of Text Meets the Body as Text: the Monodramas of SuAndi and Lemn Sissay”

 

2009

Race in the Modern World: An International Conference on Race Discourses and Contemporary Identities Goldsmiths, University of London. Paper: “Mixed Messages: Representing Mixed Heritages in Contemporary British Literature”

Diaspora Cities: Urban, Mobility and Dwelling Department of Geography and The City Centre, Queen Mary University of London. Paper: “The Frontline and the Front Room: Representing Black British Domestic Space in Contemporary Writing”.

Fractured Narratives: Pinter Postmodernism and the Postcolonial World Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, University of London. Convenor for panel: “‘So who then are Pinter’s legitimate children?’ :Centring black women’s writing in the canon of artistic paternity.” With Drs. Joan Anim-Addo and Suzanne Scafe. 

Paper: “One body, Many voices: Upon ‘Getting the Whole Story’ in the Monodramas of debbie tucker green and Mojisola Adebayo”.

 

2010

Celebrating Women’s Writing Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Paper: ‘“Felt queer all the morning and had to lie down”: (pre)maternal and (pre)natal aesthetics in George Egerton and Barbara Baynton’s short stories’.

Contemporary Women’s Writing: New Texts, Approaches and Technologies Third Biennial Conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Network, San Diego State University, USA. Paper: “Diasporic Voices and Aesthetic Choices: Contemporary Black British Women Dramatists’ Experiential and Linguistic Innovations”

Poetry and Voice: A Creative and Critical Conference University of Chichester. Panel with Professor Lauri Ramey: “The Choice of Voice: Poetry Traditions of the African Diaspora”. Paper: “Set in Stone”: Lemn Sissay and SuAndi’s Landmark Poetics

Transformations of Narrative in the Postcolonial Era. Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, University of London. Paper: “The Page is the Stage: An Exploration of debbie tucker green’s Dramatic Poetics”.

 

2011

6th International Caribbean Women’s Writing Conference: Comparative Critical Conversations.

The Centre for Caribbean Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. Paper: “Trading Places: New Definitions of ‘Here’ and ‘There’ in Diasporic Drama”.

 

Conferences organised:

1998

First New Woman Conference: Gendering the Fin-de-Siecle Institute of English Studies, University of London (with Drs. Laura Marcus, Deborah Parsons, Angelique Richardson and Chris Willis)

 

1999

Curricula in Women’s Prisons Hillcroft College (with the Home Office)

 

2008

On Whose Terms?: Critical Negotiations in Black British Literature and the Arts Goldsmiths College, University of London (with Dr. Godfrey Brandt, Birkbeck and Professor Mark Stein, University of Munster)  

2009

Race in the Modern World: An International Conference on Race Discourses and Contemporary Identities Goldsmiths, University of London and the Stephen Lawrence Trust (Executive committee member and literary programme curator and chair)

 

2010

Women, Creativity and Dissidence: A Three-day Workshop with Nawal el Saadawi SABLE LitMag and Goldsmiths, University of London.