Patrick Leroux
Professor
Department: English
Faculty: Arts and Science
| Phone: | (514) 848-2424 ext. 5617 | |
| Email: | patrick.leroux@concordia.ca | |
| Website(s): |
CEAD site Web View my Bookshelf page Resonance Lab Montreal Working Group on Circus Research Groupe Socio-esthétique des pratiques théâtrales du Québec contemporain |
Expertise:
Circus, Cirque du Soleil, Quebec and English Canadian Drama, Contemporary European Drama, Creative Writing, Quebec Theatre, Quebecois Literature
Language(s) spoken:
English, French (able to conduct interviews in French)
Professional associations:
PhD
Louis Patrick Leroux is a Full Professor who holds a joint appointment in both departments of English and Études françaises. He was Associate Dean of Research from January 2019 to August 2023.
Doctorate and DEA (Master’s II) in Theater (Sorbonne nouvelle)
DESS in Arts and Cultural Industries Management (HEC Montréal)
BA in Theatre and French Literature (Ottawa)
His academic research and graduate supervision covers modern and contemporary theatre, self-representation in drama, cultural discourse, research-creation, dramaturgy, Québec literature, literatures on the margins, organization and leadership in artistic organisations, and contemporary circus.
His approach to research and research-creation is fundamentally interdisciplinary and, consequently, he has worked with colleagues across many academic and practice-based fields. Recent and ongoing research projects include: the study of the poetics of writing the body in contemporary circus; performative research dissemination through research-creation; the physical, social, and creative impacts of circus practice on school children; digital cultural mediation and a socio-historical study of Québec theatre.
His research, as principal investigator, co-investigator, or collaborator has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight: 2014-18 and 2020-25; Connections, 2012-13, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19; Partnership Grant: 2012-17; Partnership Development Grants: 2015-18 and 2018-21; Partnership Engage Grant: 2020-21); by the Fonds de recherches du Québec—Société et culture (aide à la recherche-création, 2009-2012, 2015-18; and 2017-20; nouveaux professeurs-chercheurs, 2011-14; équipe en émergence: 2012-14); by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2014-18) and, as a collaborator, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada though its College and Community Innovation Program (2012-17 and 2017-22).
Dr. Leroux regularly supervises or co-supervises students in Creative Writing and Literature in the Department of English, and in research-creation, performance, and contemporary circus in the INDI and Humanities PhD programs. He has supervised SSHRC, FRQ-SC and MITACS-funded post-doctoral fellows in both his departments.
He is the founding director of the Montreal Working Group on Circus and a collaborator with the Canada Industrial Research Chair in Circus Arts. He is a regular member of the Performing Arts Research Cluster of the Milieux Institute (Concordia University), of the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la literature et la culture québécoises (Université de Montréal), and of the Laboratoire de recherches sur les publics de la culture (UQTR). He is also on the advisory committee of the international Circus Arts Research Platform.
Recent books include: Contemporary Circus, co-written with Katie Lavers and Jon Burtt (Routledge, 2019 and its Chinese language translation), Estie toasté des deux bords: Les formes populaires de l’oralité chez Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, co-edited with Sophie Dubois (Presses de l'Université de Montréal), Cirque Global: Québec’s Expanding Circus Boundaries, co-edited with Charles Batson (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), and Le jeu des positions. Discours du théâtre québécois, co-edited with Hervé Guay (Nota Bene, 2014).
He has edited issues for L’Annuaire théâtral, including: “Le Québec à Las Vegas” (2009) and “Désordre et ordonnancement” (2008), and Percées: Explorations en arts vivants, "Corps scéniques, textes, textualités" with Catherine Cyr (2020).
He edited an issue of Québec Studies in 2014 (“North-South Circus Circulations”), and was a section editor of the “Circus and its Others” issue of Performance Matters (2018).
He edited an issue of Québec Studies in 2014 (“North-South Circus Circulations”), and was a section editor of the “Circus and its Others” issue of Performance Matters (2018).
He has published articles in French, English, and Spanish (translation) in: Percées, L’Annuaire théâtral, Theatre Topics, Theatre Research in Canada, Journal of Canadian Studies, Québec Studies, Voix et images, alt.theatre, Études théâtrales, L’Aparté, Apuntes de teatro, Revue de théâtre Jeu, Spirale, Canadian Theatre Review, L’oiseau-tigre, EntrActe, and Canadian Literature. His articles have been anthologized in The Routledge Circus Studies Reader (2016) and Le théâtre québécois en revue (Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2014)
Recent creative books include: False Starts (Talonbooks, 2016), Ludwig & Mae (in French, Prise de parole, 2016; in English, Talonbooks, 2009), Dialogues fantasques pour causeurs éperdus (Prise de parole, 2012), and Se taire (Prise de parole, 2010).
His work on university-based research-creation, includes theatrical productions, film, dance, and video installation, and can be seen at http://resonance.hexagram.ca. He has done additional research-creation work on circus in a laboratory setting involving multi-media and dramaturgy (National Circus School, les 7 doigts de la main, Géodézik). In the summer of 2016, his Hamlet on the Wire—Hamlet sur le fil, a theatrical performance for high wire and sound installation, was presented in Montreal. This commissioned resonant response to Shakespeare’s work was the second, after Milford Haven (performative video installation, 2012).
Over the past 15 years, he has given over 170 talks, keynote addresses, and guest classroom lectures across North America, Europe and South America on research-creation, the creative process, contemporary circus, interdisciplinary practices, nineteenth century French theatre, the business of playwriting, and Québec drama and literature.
Most recently, he was a Visiting Professor at Université de Toulouse and then at École normale supérieure de Lyon (Spring 2022) and he taught at the Spring seminar at the Lake Como School of Advanced Studies/University of Milano-Bicocca (June 2022). He was a guest teacher (remotely) at Taipei's Circus Factory program in contemporary circus in 2021. In Spring 2018, he gave a condensed doctoral seminar on research-creation at the University of Chile. In Spring 2017, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre national des arts du cirque in Châlons-en-Champagne, France. In Spring 2014, he was a Visiting Scholar in Theatre Studies at Charles University, Prague. Previously, in 2012, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Canadian Studies, Duke University, Durham NC.