José Ramón Prado-Pérez is Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the Department of English Studies, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló.
José Ramón holds a BA in English (University of Oviedo) and a PhD in English Literature (University of Oviedo). His PhD thesis explores the political focus in Caryl Churchill’s works. He specializes in British contemporary theatre with an emphasis on post-war political drama. His research interests include popular culture and literature, film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays and British contemporary metafiction. He is author of Revisiones críticas del teatro alternativo británico contemporáneo 1968-1990 (Universitat Jaume I, 2000) and co-editor of Tendencias actuales en los Estudios Filológicos Anglo-Norteamericanos (Universitat Jaume I, 2003) and New Literatures of Old: Dialogues of Tradition and Innovation in Anglophone Literature (Cambridge Scholars, 2008) and World Political Theatre and Performance: Theories, Histories, Practices (Brill, 2020).
He is the founder and editor in chief of Culture, Language and Representation, a cultural studies journal published by Universitat Jaume I, and was general editor from 2004 to 2016. He was a co-investigator for “Estudios sobre intermedialidad como mediación intercultural”, a three-year research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (FFI2008-05388), “Ethical Issues in Contemporary British Theatre since 1989: Globalization, Theatricality, Spectatorship”, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FFI2012-31842), and “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, a four-year research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the EU European Regional Development Fund (FFI2016-75443). He also participated in “Representations of the Precarious in Contemporary British Drama and Theatre”, a one-year (2014) research project funded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD; Projekt-ID 57049392). From 2013 to 2015 he translated British playwrights’ work into Spanish for the “Theatre Uncut” project led by Emma Callender and Hannah Price.
Contemporary British Theatre
(forthcoming): “Concerted Action: Aesthetic Activism and Social Protest in the Theatre Uncut Project”, Performance and Social Action: The Staging Ground for Better Worlds. London: Bloomsbury.
(forthcoming): “Memory as the Site of Contestation Against Neoliberal Hegemony in 1990s Theatre”, Modern Drama.
2022: “‘Sinking giggling into the sea’: Postdemocracy and the State of British Politics in James Graham’s This House and Labour of Love”, Crisis, Representation and Resilience: Perspectives on Contemporary British Theatre. Eds. Clare Wallace, Clara Escoda, Enric Monforte and José Ramón Prado-Pérez. London: Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/crisis-representation-and-resilience-9781350180857/
2022: co-editor with Clara Escoda, Clare Wallace and Enric Monforte, Crisis, Representation and Resilience: Perspectives on Contemporary British Theatre. London: Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/crisis-representation-and-resilience-9781350180857/
2020: co-editor with Mireia Aragay and Paola Botham, World Political Theatre and Performance: Theories, Histories, Practices. Leiden and Boston: Brill. https://brill.com/view/title/
2017: “Spaces for the Construction of Community: The Theatre Uncut Phenomenon”, Of Precariousness: Vulnerabilitie
2016: “The Precariousness of Spectatorship in Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man”, Dialogoi: Rivista di Studi Comparatistici 3, pp. 175-87.
2003: “La utilización de la cultura popular como estrategia de subversión feminista en la obra dramática de Pam Gems”, Estrategias feministas en el teatro británico del siglo XX. Ed. Hildegard Klein Hagen. Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, pp. 145-166.
2002: “Pam Gems”, Twentieth Century British Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Del Janik, Vicki Janik. Westport: Greenwood Press, pp. 129-135.
2001: “Issues of Representation and Political Discourse in Caryl Churchill’s Latest Work”, (Dis)Continuities. Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English. Eds. Margarete Rubik, Elke Mettinger-Schartmann. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, pp. 91-104.
2000: Revisiones críticas del teatro alternativo británico contemporáneo. 1968-1990. Castelló: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Jaume I.
2000: with María del Pilar Moliner Marín, “Experimentación formal y compromiso político en el teatro de Caryl Churchill: historia socio-cultural del teatro experimental británico contemporáneo”, La estética de la transgresión. Revisiones críticas del teatro de vanguardia. Eds. Antonio Ballesteros González, Cécile Vilvandre de Sousa. Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, pp. 389-397.
1999: “La utilización del teatro histórico como elemento de experimentación teatral e intervención política en la producción dramática de Caryl Churchill”, Teatro Histórico (1975-1998): Textos y Representaciones. Eds. José Romera Castillo, Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Madrid: Visor Libros, pp. 721-30.
1999: “Culture of Consensus, Theatre of Dissent: a Socio-Cultural Assessment of British Alternative Drama in the 1980s and 1990s”, Los estudios ingleses. Situación actual y perspectivas de futuro. Ed. Francisco Fernández. Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, pp. 335-42.
Other
(forthcoming): “‘There’s a Lot to Be Said for Making People Laugh’: The Grotesque as Political Subversion in Jonathan Coe’s Fiction”, Études Britanniques Contemporaines 50.
2008: coeditor with Dídac Llorens Cubedo, New Literatures of Old: Dialogues of Tradition and Innovation in Anglophone Literature. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2008: “Introduction: The Politics of Interculturalism, Intertextuality and Hybridization”, New Literatures of Old: Dialogues of Tradition and Innovation in Anglophone Literature. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2006: “Popular Culture, Formal Experiment and Social Critique in Jonathan Coe’s Postmodern Fictions”, Literatura y cultura popular en el nuevo milenio. Eds. Manuel Cousillas Rodríguez, José Ángel Fernández Roca, Pablo Cancelo López, Rubén Jarazo Álvarez. A Coruña: SELICUP and Universidade da Coruña, pp. 963-76.
2005: “La cultura popular como fuente de subversión en la obra de Patrick McCabe”, Cultura y literatura popular: Manifestaciones y aproximaciones en (con)textos irlandeses, angloamericaos y otros. Eds. José Manuel Estevé Saá, Mercedes Arriaga Flórez. Sevilla: Arcibel, SELICUP, pp. 101-10.
2004: “Implicaciones ideológicas en la puesta en escena fílmica de La fierecilla domada”. Cine y Literatura: el teatro en el cine. Eds. Juan Domingo Vera Méndez, Alberto Sánchez Jordán. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, pp. 182-9.
2003: co-editor with María Elena Ortells Montón, Tendencias actuales en los Estudios Filológicos Anglo-Norteamericanos. Castelló: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Jaume I.
2003: co-editor with Santiago Posteguillo Gómez, Elena María Ortells Montón, María Amparo Alcina Caudet, Alicia Bolaños, Internet in Linguistics, Translation and Literary Studies. Castelló: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Jaume I.
2002: “Representaciones ideológicas y culturales en la adaptación cinematográfica de La Tempestad/Prospero’s Books”, Del teatro al cine y la televisión en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Ed. José Romera Castillo. Madrid: Visor Libros, pp. 477-86.
2001: “Interculturalism, Subversion and the Quest for Identity in Chicano Theatre”, Crossing Borders: Intercultural Drama and Theatre at the Turn of the Millennium. Eds. Bernhard Reitz, Alyce von Rothkirch. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, pp. 131-40.
2001: “‘The Politics of Hope’: An Analysis of Oppositional Strategies in Václav Havel’s Dramatic Production”, Havel as a Dramatist. Eds. Fukač, Jiří, Pospíšilová, Mizerová, Alena. Brno: Compostela Group of Universities, Vutium Press, pp. 57-73.
2001: “Sleeping with the Enemy: The Cultural History of Confrontation in British Pop since the 1960s”. Proceedings of the VIth Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas. XXth Century European Narratives: Tradition and Innovation. Eds. Sascha Talmor and Rachel Ben-David. Mercaz: International Society for the Study of European Ideas. CD-rom.
2000: “Shakespeare Our Contemporary: Exploring European Identity and Popular Culture through Two Filmed Versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas. Eds. Daniel Apollon, Odd-Bjørn Fure, Lars Svåsand. Bergen: HIT Centre at the University of Bergen. CD-rom.
1999: “Images of Popular Culture in British Fiction of the 1990s”, The Grove, Working Papers on English 6, pp. 147-59.
1999: with María Moliner Marín, “Reflections of and upon American Culture in Film: Baz Luhrmann´s William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet”, Actas del XXI Congreso internacional AEDEAN. Eds. Fernando Toda Iglesia, Juan A. Prieto Pablos, María José Mora and Teresa López Soto. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, pp. 169-74.
1999: “Cultural Representations of War in the Vietnam Film Subgenre”, Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference of AEDEAN. Eds. Pere Gallardo and Enric Llurda. Lleida: Universidad de Lleida, pp. 331-4.
1998: “Diseño de actividades teatrales en el contexto del método comunicativo: en busca de la autonomía del estudiante en el aprendizaje del inglés como segunda lengua”, El teatro: componentes teóricos y prácticos para la enseñanza-aprendizaje de una lengua extranjera. Eds. Rafael Ruiz Álvarez, Rodrigo López Carrillo, Javier Suso López and Juan A. Martínez Berbel. Granada: Universidad de Granada, pp. 359-66.
1998: “Implicaciones socio-políticas y culturales de la relación entre lo público y lo privado en la literatura inglesa contemporánea”, Dossiers feministes. Dones i literatura 1. Ed. Seminari d’Investigació Feminista. Castelló: Publicaciones de la Universidad Jaume I, pp. 27-42.
1997: “Disgregación y comentario social en las últimas tendencias de la novela británica”, La diversitat discursiva. Eds. M. D. Burdeus, M. García Grau and J. Peraire. Castelló: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Jaume I, pp. 83-92.
Contemporary British Theatre
2015: member of the organizing committee, “Theatre and Spectatorship”, 24th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), University of Barcelona, 4-7 June.
2014: “Resisting Stratification and Opposing Neoliberalism: The Case of the Theatre Uncut Project”, paper presented at “Theatre and Stratification”, International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (IFTR/ FIRT), University of Warwick, 28 July-1 August.
2013: “The Struggle for Representation: Depicting War in Gregory Burke’s Black Watch and David Hare’s Stuff Happens”, paper presented at “Re-Routing Performance/Re-caminant l’escena”, International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (IFTR/ FIRT), Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, 22-26 July.
2013: “Documenting the Crisis: Dramatizations of Neoliberal Ideology in Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money, Lucy Prebble’s Enron, and David Hare’s The Power of Yes”, paper presented at the international conference “The Viewing of Politics and the Politics of Viewing: Theatre Challenges in the Age of Globalized Communities”, Aristotle University (Thessaloniki), 18-21 April.
2013: “The Struggle for Representation: Depicting War in Gregory Burke’s Black Watch and David Hare’s Stuff Happens“, paper presented at “Re-Routing Performance/Re-caminant l’escena”, International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (IFTR/ FIRT), Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, 22-26 July.
2013: “The Representation of the Crisis and Crises of Representation in British Political Drama: Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money, Lucy Prebble’s Enron and David Hare’s The Power of Yes”, paper presented at the international conference “The Viewing of Politics and the Politics of Viewing: Theatre Challenges in the Age of Globalized Communities”, Aristotle University (Thessaloniki), 18-21 April.
2010: “Exploring the Ethics of Representation in Verbatim Theatre: the Cases of Robin Soans’ Talking to Terrorists and David Hare’s The Permanent Way”, paper presented at the 10th Conference of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE), University of Turin, 24-28 August.
2002: “Agit-prop versus Social Realism: the Articulation of British Political Theatre in the 1970s and 1980s”, paper presented at “Colloque TASC: Guerres intestines dans les arts du spectacle contemporain”, Université Haute Bretagne Rennes 2, Rennes, 23-24 May.
2001: “Experiment and Politics in British Drama at the End of the 1990s: The Work of Martin Crimp, Gregory Motton and Caryl Churchill”, paper presented at the conference “Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of a New Millennium”, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 16-19 May.
1998: “Cultural and Power Relations Between Society and the Theatre in Britain Since 1968: the Unfinished Revolution”, paper presented at IV Seminario de Estudios Culturales “Culture and Power: Cultural Confrontations”, Universidad de Zaragoza, 17-19 September.
1998: “Cultural and Theatrical Representations of Eastern Europe in British Drama from the 1990s”, paper presented at “British, Irish and American Studies International Conference”, University of the West, Timisoara, 20-22 May.
Contemporary British Theatre
2023: participation in the study day on care in/and twenty-first century British theatre within the project “Gender, Affect and Care in Twenty-First Century British Theatre”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 24 February.
2018: participation in the study day on crisis within the project “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 12 April.
2017: participation in the study day on affect within the project “British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 24 March.
2016: “The Ethics of Mediated Representation: Media and Literary Images of War”, a lecture given to PhD students, Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali, Università degli Studi Roma La Sapienza, Roma, 6 December.
2016: “The Return of the Real: New British Dramaturgies”, a guest lecture given within the “In Altre Parole: Rassegna Internazionale di Dramaturgia Contemporanea” Festival (XI Edizione), organized by Pino Tierno and Simone Trecca, Dipartimento de Lingue, Letterature e Culture Straniere, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 24 November.
2016: participation in the study day on happiness organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia, 12 May.
2015: “The Representation of Crisis in British Theatre”, a guest lecture given to PhD students, Birmingham City University, 21 January.
2015: “Crisis and Representation in Contemporary British Theatre”, a lecture given to PhD students, Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali, Università degli Studi Roma La Sapienza, Roma, 17 December.
2015: “Current Trends in Contemporary British Theatre”, a guest lecture given at the Dipartimento de Lingue, Letterature e Culture Straniere, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 9 December.
2014: “The Precariousness of Spectatorship in Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man”, a paper presented within the “Second Augsburg-Barcelona Seminar” organized by the research project “Darstellungen des Prekären im britishen Gegenwartstheater” (“Representations of the Precarious in Contemporary British Theatre”), funded by the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst – German Academic Exchange Service; Projekt-ID: 57049392), University of Barcelona, 17 September.
2013: participation in the post-show talk of the Theatre Uncut performances 2013, with Hanna Price and Emma Callender, Young Vic Theatre, London, 23 November.
2013: attendance at The Guardian Masterclasses’ course “Verbatim and Political Theatre: taking Reality to the Stage”, conducted by Nicholas Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, London, 17 July.
2012: “Metodologies docents mitjançant el teatre: mètodes de cas i resolució de problemes” [Teaching methodologies through drama techniques: case studies and problem solving], teacher training course for university lecturers, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, October-November.
2011: A public interview with Jonathan Coe held as part of events of the XXXV International Conference of the Spanish Association of Angloamerican Studies (AEDEAN), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 17 November.
2011: “Cultural Workshop: El Camino de Santiago”, held at the Secondary School “Cañada Blanch” in London, as part of the “Spanish Workshops for Teachers of Primary School”, organized by Consejería de Educación en el Reino Unido e Irlanda, Embajada de España, 1 September.
2010: “La atracción del otro lado del espejo: sublimación y ansiedad en la literatura fantástica”, a guest lecture given as part of the “III Seminario sobre literatura popular y su recepción en la Modernidad”, organized by Departamento de Filología y Culturas Europeas, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, 25 February.
2007: “La locura literaria como síntoma de la representación simbólica de la sociedad”, a guest lecture given as part of the “II Seminario sobre literatura popular y su recepción en la Modernidad”, organized by Departamento de Filología y Culturas Europeas, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, 14 November.
2007: “Using Literature in the English Language Classroom: An Introduction to the Design and Implementation of Learning Tasks and Activities”, a guest lecture given as part of “Ciclo de Conferencias sobre Literatura Infantil y Juvenil en Lengua Extranjera y sus Usos Didácticos”, organized by Departamento de Filología Moderna, Escuela Universitaria de Magisterio, Guadalajara, Universidad de Alcalá, 23 March.
2007: “Why (Not) Literature”, workshop conducted as part of “Jornadas de Formación de Auxiliares de Lengua Inglesa”, at Centro Regional de Investigación y Formación, organized by Consejería de Educación, Comunidad de Madrid,
2002: “El teatro de Václav Havel”, a talk given on the occasion of the “Actos de Investidura de Václac Havel como Doctor Honoris Causa por la Universitat de Lleida”, at Universitat de Lleida, 25 November.
2000: “Introducción a la literatura isabelina”, “Géneros Literarios Europeos”, “Aplicaciones tecnológicas en la enseñanza de idiomas”, three talks delivered in Escuela de Lenguas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Toluca, as part of his stay as guest lecturer under the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional (AECI) funding programme, 21, 28 September, 4 October.
1997: “Implicaciones socio-políticas y culturales de la relación entre lo público y lo privado. Una aproximación a la producción dramática de Caryl Churchill”, guest lecture at course “Mujeres y Literatura”, organized by Seminario de Investigación Feminista, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, May.