Hello! I’m Steve.
I’m a Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow where I run the Live Art in Scotland research project.
I write books and essays, most often about live art, queer performance and cultural politics. I also work with arts organisations like Take Me Somewhere and Company of Wolves.
My last book was about the politics of solo performance. My current project is about live art, Scotland and the curation of culture.
I’m the author of two books – Contemporary British Queer Performance (2012) and Queer exceptions: solo performance in neoliberal times (2018) – as well as a range of essays on theatre, performance and contemporary culture. I’m particularly interested in the relationship between performance and the conditions (social, political and economic) which make it possible – especially when such work is judged to be outside of the mainstream. I am currently writing a history of live art and experimental performance in Scotland.
You can find a regularly updated list of my academic publications at the University of Glasgow’s Enlighten research repository. My other shorter essays include:
I’m involved with a range of arts organisations around Scotland and the UK, creating and curating events such as the Live Art Scotland Forum and Between Strangers symposium for Take Me Somewhere festival. My public speaking gigs include a seminar on creative entrepreneurship for Deakin University, Melbourne, a panel discussion on LGBTQ+ gaming for Comicon Glasgow, and a talk for TedX University of Glasgow.
I welcome proposals from prospective PhD or MPhil students who are interested in studying at the University of Glasgow. I am particularly able to support projects concerned with:
I’m very happy to talk through draft proposals, and discuss possibilities for funding – for initial conversations, please contact me at stephen.greer@glasgow.ac.uk.
I am currently Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow.
Focusing on contemporary and c20th performance, my teaching combines traditional university formats – lectures and seminars – with practice-based workshops. This approach is grounded in the belief that theory, history and practice can inform each other, and that performance can be used to ask and answer questions in the same moment. My areas of expertise include LGBTQ+ performance, political theatre, documentary and verbatim practices, as well as devising and improvisation.
From 2013 to 2017, I led the first year Theatre Studies programme at the University of Glasgow before moving in 2018 to convene our postgraduate taught programmes in Theatre Studies and Playwriting & Dramaturgy while continuing to contribute to Honours level and postgraduate teaching across the School of Culture and Creative Arts.
My current specialist options include Queer Exceptions – a course about performance, queer theory and ideas of the ‘singular subject’ – and The Activist Stage, an applied and social theatre course which examines the relationships between performance and activism.
In 2018, I was part of the working group which developed new guidelines for preventing sexual harassment in university drama departments. You can read these guidelines on the SCUDD website.
The Soloist was an occasional podcast interview series about solo performance and solo performers hosted by Steve Greer. It was created in the early stages of what would eventually become the book Queer exceptions (2018). Each episode is a conversation with a different artist from across the fields of theatre and performance which explores the skills, choices and collaborative relationships that make solo performance possible. It’s also a show about the fine detail of making art as it collides with the practicalities of getting paid and finding an audience.
You can subscribe to the podcast feed on iTunes, via RSS or listen to archived episodes below.