National Performance

Winner of the Northeast Modern Language Association's Book Prize, National Performance is sophisticated yet accessible, seeking to enlarge the parameters of what counts as 'Quebecois' performance, while providing a thorough introduction to changing discourses of nation-ness in Quebec.

Erin Hurley is a professor of drama and theatre in the Department of English at McGill University.

‘This compelling and lucidly written study makes an important contribution to Quebec and Canadian Studies, as it is certain to change the way we will henceforth recognize a performance as being "national."’

Sherry Simon, Département d'études françaises, Concordia University:
'National Performance is an engaging, sophisticated, and inventive look at the evolution of Quebec cultural forms. Erin Hurley's analysis is an important update on conceptions of the national in Quebec.'

Jane Moss, Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies, Duke University, and Editor, Québec Studies:
'Erin Hurley makes a major contribution to Canadian and Quebec Studies with her carefully argued exploration of how theatrical and cultural performances have over the past half-century focused international attention on evolving notions of québécité and legitimized Quebec's aspiration to nationhood. Through the critical lens of performance and cultural studies and postcolonial and feminist theories, Hurley reads and theorizes the architecture of Montreal Expo 67, the nouveau theatre inaugurated by Michel Tremblay, the culture immigré proposed by Italo-Quebec writer Marco Micone, the imagistic dance theatre of Carbone 14, the mega-stardom of Céline Dion, and the impact of feminist theatre on Quebec public discourse.'