A Global Doll's House

"For the first time, we see deployed here a digital-humanities methodology that can pose and answer global-Ibsen questions at the analytical scale they deserve. With nimble movement between close and distant readings of evidence, the book really does make possible a "new way of looking" at the mass of information generated by Ibsen's A Doll House and its performance history. ... Anyone engaged in the critical evaluation of individual productions of A Doll House would do well to consult this groundbreaking presentation of an international baseline of performance interpretation, one based in a cumulative historical practice that up to this point has eluded scholarly analysis due to the inherent limitations of existing methods." (Mark Sandberg, Professor of Film & Media and Scandinavian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA) "Digital humanities meet Ibsen, revealing astonishing patterns and amazing diversity. This first global history of one of the world's most famous plays is a landmark contribution to Ibsen scholarship, performance history and cultural studies." (Narve Fulsas, Professor of Modern History, University of Tromso, Norway) "A very fine example of the new field of digital humanities, A Global Doll's House is a model exploration of the possibilities which new technologies offer, using them to provide precise and incisive answers to formerly unsolvable questions. It is, in fact, an important contribution to Ibsen Studies." (Erika Fischer- Lichte, Professor of Theatre Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany)

This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen’s most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the play’s production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation.This book addresses a deceptively simple question: what accounts for the global success of A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen’s most popular play? Using maps, networks, and images to explore the world history of the play’s production, this question is considered from two angles: cultural transmission and adaptation. Analysing the play’s transmission reveals the social, economic, and political forces that have secured its place in the canon of world drama; a comparative study of the play’s 135-year production history across five continents offers new insights into theatrical adaptation. Key areas of research include the global tours of nineteenth-century actress-managers, Norway’s soft diplomacy in promoting gender equality, representations of the female performing body, and the sexual vectors of social change in theatre.