Sessional Faculty Member
BA, MA (Ottawa), PhD (Trent)
Rick Cousins combines scholarly and creative approaches in his investigations of the byways, side roads, backstreets, blind alleys, and other nooks and crannies where cultural theory and popular culture intersect. Drawing on his background as a writer, performer and visual artist, Rick brings a practitioner’s perspective to his analysis of the performing and integrated arts, tempering the complexities of symbolism, metaphysics and aesthetics with a pragmatic understanding that the question “why did they do that?” can often be answered very simply with either “because they could” or “because they couldn’t do something else”. He’s asked (and tried to answer) that question about radio, various forms of alternative theatre, and animation—especially animation that features talking animals passing sardonic commentary on the humans who create and watch them. No matter what he turns his eye to, Rick keeps a sharp watch on its irrational, illogical, and playfully ludic elements, looking to uncover the seriousness at the core of seemingly unserious things.
- Spike Milligan’s Accordion: The Distortion of Time and Space in The Goon Show, Brill/Rodopi, 2016 (Winner of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s Ann Saddlemyer Award for Best New Book of 2016)
- “Linguistic aspects of sound design for theatre: a view from the fringe” in Recherches sémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry 35 (Special issue: Sound in Theatre, 2017)
- “The Live History company, museum theatre, “Four Spectators” and “That Guy”: a complex relationship” for Critical Stages (2020)
- ““Music hater”: The Punch-and-Judy interplay between high and low culture in the cartoons of Chuck Jones” for Interdisciplinary Humanities (2020)