Mischa's interests include European theatres of the avant-garde; Afro-European cultural politics; historical-theoretical questions of empathy and mimesis; Performance Philosophy; Memory Studies.
Dr Mischa Twitchin FHEA teaches courses on Polish Theatre, the legacies of Artaud, East European theatres, an under-graduate workshop on “touch”, and a post-graduate workshop, “Thinking Theatre”. His book, “The Theatre of Death – the Uncanny in Mimesis: Tadeusz Kantor, Aby Warburg and an Iconology of the Actor” is published by Palgrave Macmillan in their Performance Philosophy series; and examples of his own performance- and essay-films can be seen on Vimeo.
Besides this academic and artistic work, Mischa is a founder-member of the performance collective Shunt, and has also worked as a freelance lighting designer (at the Young Vic, the Barbican Pit, and the Royal Court, amongst other places). He has taught at various institutions, including Central School of Speech and Drama, the University of Kent, and Queen Mary, University of London, where he did his PhD and also held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2014-17).
Research interests
Mischa's main research interests include: European theatres of the avant-garde; Afro-European cultural politics; historical-theoretical questions of empathy and mimesis; Performance Philosophy; Memory Studies; and dialogues between anthropology, museum ethnography, and art. He would welcome PhD applications in any of these fields.
On AnimismTwitchin, Mischa and Lavery, Carl, eds. 2019. On Animism, Performance Research, 24(6). 1352-8165
Book Section
The Space BetweenTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. The Space Between. In: Daria Feherova, ed. Theatre in Exile. Bratislava, Slovakia: Theatre Institute, Bratislava, pp. 42-51. ISBN 9788081901171
On the Subject of Chance Remarks: Practising PatienceTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. On the Subject of Chance Remarks: Practising Patience. In: Ne Barros and Eugenia Vilela, eds. Performances no Contemporaneo II. Porto, Portugal: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Porto, pp. 171-176. ISBN 9789899082779
Mnemotechnics, Echo and the Discrete VoiceTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. Mnemotechnics, Echo and the Discrete Voice. In: Bart Buseyne; Georgios Tsagdis and Paul Willemarck, eds. Bernard Stiegler: Memories of the Future. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 205-215. ISBN 9781350410442
Wittgenstein and Performance: IntroductionTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. Wittgenstein and Performance: Introduction. In: Mischa Twitchin, ed. Wittgenstein and Performance. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 1-4. ISBN 9781538175095
'There is nothing like a dead man to demand existence' (Antonin Artaud)Twitchin, Mischa. 2023. 'There is nothing like a dead man to demand existence' (Antonin Artaud). In: Sharon Coleclough; Bethan Michael-Fox and Renske Visser, eds. Difficult Death, Dying and the Dead in Media and Culture. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 175-188. ISBN 9783031407314
'Keeping the Magic Alive': Some Arcane SpeculationsTwitchin, Mischa. 2023. 'Keeping the Magic Alive': Some Arcane Speculations. In: Alice Lagaay; Anke Haarmann; Tom Bieling; Torben Körschkes; Petja Ivanova; Frieder Bohaumilitzky and Barbro Scholz, eds. Specology. Hamburg: adocs, pp. 48-52. ISBN 9783943253719
Baffling Dramaturgy: Between the Obvious and the ObtuseTwitchin, Mischa. 2023. Baffling Dramaturgy: Between the Obvious and the Obtuse. In: Harry Robert Wilson and Will Daddario, eds. Rethinking Roland Barthes Through Performance: A Desire for Neutral Dramaturgy. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 157-170. ISBN 9781350330849
Modernism, medium and memoryTwitchin, Mischa. 2020. Modernism, medium and memory. In: Thirthankar Chakraborthy and Juan Luis Vazquez, eds. Samuel Beckett as World Literature. Bloomsbury, pp. 87-99. ISBN 978-1-5013-5880-7
A Dice ThrowerTwitchin, Mischa. 2020. A Dice Thrower. In: Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Alice Lagaay, eds. The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy. Routledge, pp. 326-329. ISBN 9781138495623
Shunt: A performance collectiveTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. Shunt: A performance collective. In: Teresa Brayshaw; Anna Fenemore and Noel Witts, eds. The Twenty-first Century Performance Reader. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 468-473. ISBN 9781138785342
What chance failure?Twitchin, Mischa. 2018. What chance failure? In: Tony Fisher and Eve Katsouraki, eds. Beyond Failure: New Essays on the Cultural History of Failure in Theatre and Performance. London: Routledge, pp. 37-54. ISBN 9780815370994
Kantor after DuchampTwitchin, Mischa. 2018. Kantor after Duchamp. In: M. Kobialka and N. Zarzecka, eds. Tadeusz Kantor's Memory: Other Pasts, Other Futures. TAPAC: Theatre and Performance Across Cultures (London, UK) and the Grotowski Institute (Wrocław, Poland).: Polish Theatre Perspectives (PTP). ISBN 978-1-910203-06-4
“On ‘the live effigy of man emerging out of the shadows...’”Twitchin, Mischa. 2013. “On ‘the live effigy of man emerging out of the shadows...’”. In: Carole Guidicelli, ed. Über-Marionettes and mannequins: Craig, Kantor and their contemporary legacies. Lavérune: Institut Internationale de la Marionette/ L’Entretemps, pp. 273-291. ISBN 978-2-35539-169-9
Photographic MemoriesTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. 'Photographic Memories'. In: Vestiges of Memory. University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury, United Kingdom 18-19 July 2024.
Staging the gaze in museum ethnographyTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. 'Staging the gaze in museum ethnography'. In: Anthropology and Education - Royal Anthropological Institute 2024 Conference. Senate House, University of London, United Kingdom 25-28 June 2024.
"Taking the piss" (or the "scandal of realism")Twitchin, Mischa. 2024. '"Taking the piss" (or the "scandal of realism")'. In: "Theatre and Political Correctness" (International Association of Theatre Critics Annual Conference). Novi Sad, Serbia 26-29 May 2024.
Exposed memoryTwitchin, Mischa. 2024. 'Exposed memory'. In: Subtle Transitions. Prague City University and Charles University Prague, Czech Republic 5 April 2024.
What’s Hamlet to us? (Or us to Hecuba?)Twitchin, Mischa. 2023. 'What’s Hamlet to us? (Or us to Hecuba?)'. In: "Acting, Reacting, Enacting. Theory and Practice in Performing Arts." ANTS Conference 2023. Latvian Academy of Culture Theatre House, Latvia 3-4 November 2023.
On the Subject of Chance RemarksTwitchin, Mischa. 2022. 'On the Subject of Chance Remarks'. In: Performances in the Contemporary. Institute of Philosophy, University of Porto, Portugal 12 December 2022.
Do we remember?Twitchin, Mischa. 2022. 'Do we remember?'. In: Online Launch of Memory Studies 15(3). Institute of Art History and Visual Culture, Tallinn, Estonia 29 September 2022.
Disturbing thingsTwitchin, Mischa. 2022. 'Disturbing things'. In: Museums as Spaces of Cultural Translation and Transfer Conference. Tartu University, Estonia 10-11 May 2022.
Sprechen Sie Loewe?Twitchin, Mischa. 2022. 'Sprechen Sie Loewe?'. In: Peter Friedl: Report 1964–2022. KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany 23 February 2022.
Giving a local habitation to the deadTwitchin, Mischa. 2021. 'Giving a local habitation to the dead'. In: Colloque International de Lomé: Sépultures, deuils et incarnations. Université de Lomé, Togo 1 – 3 February 2021.
Mnemotechnics and the Discrete VoiceTwitchin, Mischa. 2020. 'Mnemotechnics and the Discrete Voice'. In: Memory for the Future: Thinking with Bernard Stiegler. University of Leiden, Netherlands 3 – 4 December 2020.
Terezin - contemporariesTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. 'Terezin - contemporaries'. In: Arts Working Group of the Memory Studies Association Seminar. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom 13-14 December 2019.
The Voice of ThingsTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. 'The Voice of Things'. In: Arte e Antropologia: Oggetti fuori posto, oggetti che parlano. Antonio Pasqualino International Museum of Marionettes, Palermo, Italy 15-16 October 2019.
Red Peter and JosephineTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. 'Red Peter and Josephine'. In: Shared Memory(ies): Second EASTAP Conference. School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, Portugal 23 -25 September 2019.
Performance, Parable, and ParadoxTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. 'Performance, Parable, and Paradox'. In: Memory Studies Association Third Annual Conference. Complutense University, Madrid, Spain 25-28 June 2019.
Tragic consequencesTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. 'Tragic consequences'. In: Between Myth and Memory: Contemporary Politics and the Performance of History. University of Surrey, United Kingdom 25 April 2019.
Toxicity at WorkTwitchin, Mischa. 2019. 'Toxicity at Work'. In: Performance Philosophy Biennial Conference. University of Amsterdam, Netherlands 14-17 March 2019.
"Time crystals"Twitchin, Mischa. 2019. '"Time crystals"'. In: Global Traces Conference: Art Practice, Ethnography, Contested Heritage. University of Oslo, Norway 7-8 February 2019.
Indifference or irony?Twitchin, Mischa. 2018. 'Indifference or irony?'. In: TaPRA annual conference. University of Aberystwyth, United Kingdom 5-7 September 2018.
"In the name of your image" (Senghor)Twitchin, Mischa. 2018. '"In the name of your image" (Senghor)'. In: Memory and Performance in African-Atlantic Futures conference. University of Leeds, United Kingdom 31 August-1 September, 2018.
What's Wrong with Participation?Twitchin, Mischa. 2017. 'What's Wrong with Participation?'. In: The Avant-Garde: Aesthetic Strategies and Participatory Art. Cricoteka, Krakow, Poland 8-10.12.2017.
In and Out of the DarkTwitchin, Mischa. 2017. 'In and Out of the Dark'. In: Theatricality and the Arts Symposium. Lancaster University, United Kingdom 23-24 September 2017.
Exposing ‘People’Twitchin, Mischa. 2017. 'Exposing ‘People’'. In: TaPRA. University of Salford, Manchester, United Kingdom 30 August-1 September 2017.
Between Phantom and PhantasmTwitchin, Mischa. 2017. 'Between Phantom and Phantasm'. In: Performance Philosophy Conference. Academy of Sciences and Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, Czech Republic 22-26 June 2017.
Digital CatoptricsTwitchin, Mischa. 2017. 'Digital Catoptrics'. In: Re-Performing Symposium. Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, United Kingdom 18 June 2017.
