Robert Lepage and the ROC: Forty Years of "Circulations"
Join MISC at 4:00 pm on Monday, November 17th at the Faculty Club (3450 McTavish Street) for the 2025 Fall Eakin Lecture, Robert Lepage and the ROC: Forty Years of Circulations, by Jane Koustas.
With his collaborative effort 鈥淐irculations鈥� staged in Toronto in 1985, Lepage introduced Toronto to bi- or multilingual theatre that bypassed and transformed the then-conventional notions of translation which place source and target languages, audiences and cultures in binary opposition. This production that was 鈥渙ne third French, one third English and one third movement鈥�, redefined or transgressed the traditional labels of qu茅b茅cois, English-Canadian, the Rest of Canada (ROC) or Other.
Lepage鈥檚 success in the ROC lies in his work鈥檚 power to negotiate difference and otherness, not through the depiction of conflict or division, but through the imaginary and visual presentation of shared space and ideas, and through the broadening and fusing of horizons. Unlike other destinations on his extensive global itinerary, the ROC was a home away from home that recalled and played upon Lepage鈥檚 own dual identity as qu茅b茅cois and Canadian while joining him on, and benefitting from, his global artistic and geographic journey; he staged the pulsation between familiarity and otherness.
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A and reception. This event is free and open to public; .
The Eakin Lecture series is organized bi-annually by the 黑料网 Institute for the Study of Canada, as a part of the Eakin Visiting Fellowship in Canadian Studies established by the Eakin family in memory of William R. Eakin. The fellowships are awarded each term to active scholars whose research or teaching advances Canadians Studies.
Jane Koustas is Professor Emerita of French at Brock University where she also directed Canadian Studies. She served as the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin. Koustas was the President of the Canadian Studies Network from 2014 to 2016 and served as the President of the International Council for Canadian Studies from 2022 to 2024. Koustas was also the Editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies. In 2022, she was awarded the Governor General鈥檚 International Award for Canadian Studies.
She is the co-editor of: Landscapes and Landmarks of Canada: Real, Imagined, (Re)viewed; Plurilinguisme et pluriculturalisme: Des mod猫les officiels dans le monde; Canadian Studies: Past, Present, Praxis with Christl Verduyn; Translating from the Margins: Traduire depuis les marges; Robert Lepage: Th茅脿tre sans fronti猫res: essays on the dramatic universe of Robert Lepage and Vision/Division: l鈥檕euvre de Nancy Huston. Professor Koustas published Les belles 茅trang猫res: Canadians in Paris, 2008 and Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage: Language, Identity, Nation, 2016.
In 2017, she was awarded the James A. Flaherty Visiting Professorship by the Ireland-Canada University Foundation to pursue a comparative study of Quebec and Irish theatre.