Integrating post-Operaismo social theory with recent turns in performance studies shows how such theory complicates and is complicated by cross-arts questions around virtuosity and affective labor. Such complications emerge, not only in the contemporary art sphere, but also in the history and theory developed by performance studies as a discipline.

In 2007, Routledge published Theory for Performance Studies as part of its Theory 4 series, listing Philip Auslander as author. When, in August, The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that much of the book was lifted word-for-word from the template for the series, Theory for Religious Studies by Timothy K. Beal and William E. Deal, TDR editor Richard Schechner convened via email and phone conversations a “ TDR Forum,” asking leaders in the field to respond to the book and the series. Schechner and other respondents address issues of plagiarism, corporate takeovers of academic publishing, and the dumbing down of performance studies, asking why a notable scholar such as Auslander would undertake such an egregious piece of “scholarship.” Deal and Beal answer some questions put to them by Schechner, and Routledge's Claire L'Enfant and Talia Rodgers offer their perspectives.

The heterogeneity of the memorial gathering for the late Dwight Conquergood reveals the disciplinary legacies of what is sometimes erroneously called the “Northwestern” strain of performance studies in the United States—which Conquergood was key in developing.

A century ago there were no university “theatre departments.” Jack-son digs into the archives to recount the story of how some “white academic American men” figured prominently in the academic insti-tutionalization of “performance.”