Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories

Drawing on rich interdisciplinary research that has laced the emerging subject of drag studies as an academic discipline, this book examines how drag performance is a political, socio-cultural practice with a widespread lineage throughout the history of performance. This volume maps the multi-threaded contexts of contemporary practices while rooting them in their fabulous historical past and memory.

The book examines drag histories and what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. Featuring work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, this book allows the reader to engage with a range of archival research including camp and history; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; the connections between drag king and queen history; queering pantomime performance; drag and military veterans; Puerto Rican drag performers and historical film.

Mark Edward is a pracademic and Reader in Creative Arts at Edge Hill University, UK. His publications include Mesearch and the Performing Body (2018). Professionally he has worked for Rambert Dance Company and performed with the renowned American performance artist Penny Arcade in her work Bad Reputation (2004) and in Jeremy Goldstein’s Truth to Power Café (2018). Mark is also the writer and producer of the immersive performance and film installation Council House Movie Star (2012) featuring his drag persona Gale Force.


Stephen Farrier is Reader in Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. With Alyson Campbell he has coedited Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (2015) as well as a themed edition of RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance named the ‘Gender and Sexuality Issue’.