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Professor Helena Grehan

Vice Chancellor's Professorial Research Fellow

Staff Member Details
Telephone: +61 8 6304 3193
Email: h.grehan@ecu.edu.au
Room: 3.3223  
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9257-5615

Helena is a Vice Chancellor's Professorial Research Fellow at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

Background

Helena graduated from Murdoch University with a PhD in Theatre Studies in 1998.
She taught undergraduate and postgraduate students at Murdoch in theatre, creative arts and literature from 1998-2019. From 2019-2023 she taught HDR candidates in the cross-campus Accelerated Research Masters with Training. Helena has supervised over 20 HDR candidates to completion. She has published six scholarly books (sole, co-authored and co-edited) and numerous articles and chapters, several of which have won prizes for research excellence. She has also led major externally funded collaborative grant projects. Helena joined WAAPA in February 2024.

Professional associations

  • 1999-present, Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies
  • 2002-present, PSi (Performance Studies International)

Awards and recognition

National and International awards

  • 2023 - Elected a Fellow of The Australian Academy of the Humanities
  • 2021 - Won (with co-editor Professor Peter Eckersall) the Australasian Drama Studies Association Joanne Tompkins Prize for excellence in editing
  • 2019 - Awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished and Sustained Achievement in Research, Murdoch University
  • 2011 - Won the Australasian Drama Studies Association Marlis Thiersch Research Award for excellence in theatre studies scholarship
  • 2010 - Won the Australasian Drama Studies Association Rob Jordan Book Prize for excellence in theatre studies scholarship

University and National teaching awards

  • 2008 - Won Murdoch University's Vice Chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching Award

Research areas and interests

Her current research deals with the following topics:

  • Questions of ethics and responsibility in and in response to contemporary art practice, with a focus on performance, installation and digital arts
  • Digitisation and post-digitisation futures for vulnerable HASS collections
  • Art and ethics in the context of extreme weather events
  • The politics of performance and spectatorship

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Murdoch University, 1999.

Research Outputs

Book Chapters

  • Thurow, S., Grehan, H., Pagnucco, M. (2024). Representing the Climate Crisis: Aesthetic Framings in Contemporary Performing and Visual Arts. Climate Disaster Preparedness: Reimagining Extreme Events through Art and Technology (107-120). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56114-6_9.
  • Grehan, H., Smaill, B., Ostwald, MJ. (2024). Creatively Reimagining Place and Community in a World of Extreme Weather. Climate Disaster Preparedness: Reimagining Extreme Events through Art and Technology (183-197). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56114-6_14.
  • Davidson, J., Woodland, S., Grehan, H., Pengelly, S., Hassall, L. (2024). Moving Beyond Recovery and Reconstruction: Imagining Extreme Event Preparedness Through Performing Arts. Climate Disaster Preparedness: Reimagining Extreme Events through Art and Technology (79-92). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56114-6_7.

Conference Publications

Journal Articles

Journal Articles

Journal Articles

Book Chapters

  • Grehan, H. (2019). Art, Politics, and the Promise of Rupture: Reimagining the manifesto in an age of overflow. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics (337-340). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203731055-87.
  • Grehan, H., Eckersall, P. (2019). A Dramaturgy of Cultural Activism. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics (1-6). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203731055-1.

Journal Articles

Journal Articles

Research Projects

  • Life after Digitisation: Future-proofing WA's Vulnerable Cultural Heritage , Australian Research Council, Grant - Linkage (Projects), 2022 ‑ 2027, $16,890.

Research Student Supervision

Principal Supervisor

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Digitising the Performing Arts: A Guide to Curating a Digital Collection.
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