Dr Seda Ilter

Overview

Biography

 
Seda is Programme Director of MA Dramaturgy, and teaches on BA Theatre & Drama, BA Theatre Studies & English, MA Text and Performance, and MA Dramaturgy. Seda joined the department in 2014, having previously worked at University of Sussex, University of Brighton, University of Portsmouth and Middle East Technical University (Turkey). Her research primarily focuses on contemporary theatre and performance, dramaturgy, technology and theatre, and new writing for performance.

Highlights

• Mediatized Dramaturgy: The Evolution of Plays in the Media Age

Qualifications

• PhD Drama, University of Sussex

Professional memberships

• Dramaturgs' Network

  The Fence

  International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR)

  Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)

ORCID

0000-0002-5072-5005

Research

Research interests

• contemporary drama and theatre
• theatre and mediatized culture
• textuality in digital theatre
• new dramaturgies
• aesthetics and politics of representation
• new writing in theatre and performance
• theory and practice of adaptation

Research overview

Seda’s research primarily focuses on theoretical and aesthetic implications of new technologies and mediatized culture in theatre; new writing and modes of textuality in contemporary performance; new dramaturgies (mediatized, postdramatic, participatory, etc.). She is author of Mediatized Dramaturgy: The Evolution of Plays in the Media Age (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021) which combines theatre and media theory, and offers conceptual reflections on the ways in which playtexts have evolved in relation to the sociocultural and cognitive conditions of a mediatized age, and how they, in form and content, negotiate the new reality of contemporary culture. Her work on contemporary theatre and mediatized culture has also led to articles on the ontology of mediaturgical texts, dataveillance and resistant aesthetics in theatre, and mediatized plays, published in journals such as Modern Drama and Performance Research.

Seda has also been interested in the politics and aesthetics of theatre in Turkey, and the journey from British theatre to the theatre scene in Turkey. She has published on topics such as performance as resistance during the Gezi Protests and the adaptation of Simon Stephens’s Pornography to the Turkish stage. She curated and wrote the introduction for the dossier ‘Reflections on Turkish Theatre’ published in Theatre Research International in which artists and academics respond to the contemporary scene by viewing it from different disciplinary and cultural perspectives. In addition to her academic work, Seda directed her translation of Tim Crouch’s The Author in Istanbul at the Talimhane Theatre, (2015 – 2016) which then toured to the Theater an der Ruhr, Germany (2016).

Seda is currently working on two different essays to be published in edited collections: Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre (2022) and Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists (2022).

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

2

Seda welcomes inquiries from prospective PhD students (including practice-led projects) interested in researching within her field or related areas, in particular topics relating to:

• modern and contemporary drama, theatre and performance;
• mediatized dramaturgy;
• theory and practice of theatre and performance in digital culture;
• new writing and new textualities;
• dramaturgy;
• adaptation;
  
• performance and cultural politics.

Current doctoral researchers

• DARIA PONOMAREVA

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Sep 2024 onwards

  Title of thesis:

  Embodiment of the Futuristic Otherness: Disability and Performative Able-bodiedness of Cyborgs in Video Games

Teaching

Seda runs the MA Dramaturgy. She teaches across MA Dramaturgy, MA Text and Performance, and BA Theatre and Drama/Theatre and English.

Teaching modules

• Dissertation: Theatre and Performance Research (AREN031D7)
• Performing Theatre Histories (Critical Practice I) (AREN096S4)
• The Arts of Adaptation: Creative Climates (AREN199S5)

Publications