The passing of the Trump presidency has left much of the academic world in a state of PTSD. “How could this have happened?” we ask in delayed shock. “Has the virus merely been suppressed?” It seems the right moment to ask ourselves fundamental questions, and the publication of The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography, a collection of twenty-four essays meticulously edited by Tracy Davis (Northwestern University) and Peter Marx (University of Cologne), is a handy prompt to think about what our discipline is offering to the world. If indeed discipline it be. Tom Postlewait published in 2009 a methodological Bible for theatre history, considered as a subset of the broader discipline of history, that is, “the pursuit of truths about the past within the conditions and constraints of possible knowledge.” Claire Cochrane and Jo Robinson, in their 2019 Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography, were less confident, suggesting that theatre historians should abandon the term “discipline” in favor of “discourse,” provided always that rigor and self-reflexivity are maintained, because too many different kinds of knowledge are entailed. In order to lay bare the project of the Routledge Companion, I will begin by unpacking its full title. The. Not just any old companion. Will this be the Routledge companion, offering a suggested way into the subject overtly different from, say, the Methuen alternative? Or does the voice fall more authoritatively upon the last word, Historiography, saying, as it were, “Hey, students, it’s the 2020s, and this is what you now have to do?” The emphasis can perhaps be found in the Introduction in which the editors seek “to recreate wholesale what will be the next generation’s received narrative” (25).

中文翻译：

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2020 年代的戏剧/表演史学：评论文章 - 由 Tracy C. Davis 和 Peter W. Marx 编辑的戏剧和表演史学的 Routledge 伴侣。伦敦和纽约：劳特利奇，2021；pp. xxi + 495, 63 幅插图。250 美元的布，52.95 美元的电子书。

特朗普总统任期的逝世使学术界的大部分人都处于创伤后应激障碍状态。“怎么会这样？” 我们在延迟休克中询问。“病毒只是被抑制了吗？” 现在似乎是问自己基本问题的合适时机，由 Tracy Davis（西北大学）和 Peter Marx（科隆大学）精心编辑的 24 篇论文集《The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography》的出版是一个方便的提示，让我们思考我们的学科为世界提供了什么。如果确实有纪律的话。Tom Postlewait 于 2009 年出版了一部戏剧史方法论圣经，被认为是更广泛的历史学科的一个子集，即“在可能的知识的条件和限制下追求关于过去的真理。” Claire Cochrane 和 Jo Robinson 在他们 2019 年的 Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography 中信心不足，建议戏剧史学家应该放弃“纪律”一词，转而使用“话语”，前提是始终保持严谨和自我反思。因为需要太多不同种类的知识。为了揭示 Routledge Companion 的项目，我将首先打开它的完整名称。这。不只是任何老伙伴。这是否会成为 Routledge 的伴侣，提供一种明显不同于 Methuen 替代方案的建议方式？还是声音更权威地落在最后一个词 Historiography 上，仿佛在说：“嘿，学生们，现在是 2020 年代，这就是你现在必须做的？” 或许可以在引言中找到重点，在该引言中，编辑们寻求“大规模地重新创造下一代接受的叙述”（25）。