Free, available to all, full of new thoughts and insights, Puppetry International Research, an open access scholarly journal, is another step in UNIMA-USA’s goal to promote, educate, and support growth in the art of puppetry as well as to provide resources to people who find puppetry important to their lives.
PIR is a space for in-depth, critical discussion about the art.
Volume 2, No. 2 continues our Founders of the Field series with Lawrence Switzky’s tribute to the work of South African scholar, teacher, and playwright Jane Taylor, offering insights into her life and thought and a bibliographic guide for further reading. Guest edited by Kathy Foley, feature articles by Peri Efe on the French playwright Molière as a source for Karagös and Karagiozis and by Rudy Wiratama on Islamic Tales in the Indonesian wayang purwa repertoire investigate cross-cultural borrowing of stories and texts. Thomas Fish’s article on arrangement’s with found objects on Atalanta’s Doll’s Head Trail examines a different model of narrative creation and the trail’s relationships to Atlanta’s political and social history. Kairu Yamanaka reports on the symposium on the performing-arts of anthropomorphic figures at the Conference of the Society for Arts and Anthropology in Japan while Karen Smith’s report gives a rundown of the Korean Traditional Puppet workshop led by Eumma company after the 24th UNIMA Congress in South Korea. Reviews of two edited collections include Asya Gorovits on In the Beginning Were the Puppets: Towards a Poetics of Puppetry edited by Sabine Coelsch-Foisner and Lisa Nais and Jennifer Goodlander on Volume 1 of the two-volume Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects collection, edited by Claudia Orenstein and Tim Cusack. Felica Cooper reviews Heart of the Beast’s production, Phantom Loss, Chee-Han Wu looks at the Puppets: Expressions of Culture Exhibit in Taiwan, and Kathy Foley writes on the Ralph Chessé exhibit in San Franciso.