Julia Gray, PhD

Biosketch 

Julia Gray is an interdisciplinary cultural and performance studies scholar, critical social science researcher and artist-practitioner (playwright/theatre director), and currently a Visiting Scholar at Sensorium, a research centre embedded in The School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design at York University. Her program of research crosses the arts, humanities, social sciences and health sciences to elucidate social experiences and overturn cultural assumptions of embodied difference, including disability and aging. This work takes an intersectional approach and is oriented to real world change through the overlapping interests of 1) drawing on arts-based and other critical qualitative approaches to explore the complexities of embodied difference, 2) exploring the ways people make art(s) as part of being in health settings and in the world, and 3) critically theorizing arts-based and critical/post qualitative methodologies. Her work is informed by feminist and queer phenomenology, critical disability theory, social and cultural theory, aesthetic philosophy, post-humanism and theatre and performance theories.

Julia was originally trained as a playwright and theatre director, with a background in dance, and she is the playwright/director of several research-informed theatre projects including After the Crash: a play about brain injury, Seeing the Forest (co-written with Dr. Gail Mitchell about patient safety culture in hospitals) and most recently Cracked: new light on dementia. She obtained her PhD from the Adult Education and Community Development program in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at OISE/UT, and she holds a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University’s Department of Theatre. 

Research Interests 

• Arts-based, critical qualitative and post-qualitative research approaches 
• Performance, cultural and social theories 
• Embodied difference: disability and aging 
• Health humanities 
• Activism/social justice 

Website

• www.possiblearts.ca
• www.crackedondementia.ca 

Sample Publications

Books 

Gray, J. (Ed.) (2017) ReView: an anthology of plays committed to social justice. Rotterdam: Brill-Sense Publishers. 

Journal Articles 

Gray, J. Dupuis, S.L., Kontos, P., Jonas-Simpson, C., Mitchell, G. (In Press) Knowledge as Embodied, Imaginative, Foolish Enactment:  Exploring Dementia Experiences through Theatre. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research.

Gray, J. Donnelly, H., Gibson, B.E. (2019) Seriously foolish and foolishly serious: The art and practice of clowning in children’s rehabilitation. Journal of Medical Humanities.  First published on-line July 23, 2019. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-019-09570-0

Gray, J., Kontos, P. (2019) Working at the margins: Theatre, social science and radical political engagement. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. Special Issue on Theatre and Performance vs the “Crisis in the Humanities”: Creative Pedagogies, Neoliberal Realities. 24(3), 204-207. doi: 10.1080/13569783.2019.1604125 

Gray, J. (2019) Working within an aesthetic of relationality: Theoretical considerations of embodiment, imagination and foolishness as part of theatre making about dementia. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. Special Issue on Theatre, Dementia and Relationality, 24(1), 6-22. doi: 10.1080/13569783.2018.1535270 

Gray, J. & Kontos, P. (2018) An aesthetic of relationality: embodiment, imagination and playing The Fool in research-informed theatre. Qualitative Inquiry. 24(7), 440-452. doi: 10.1177/1077800417736331 

Parsons, J. A., Gladstone, B. M., Gray, J. and Kontos, P. (2017) ‘Re-conceptualizing “impact” in art-based health research’, Journal of Applied Arts & Health, 8(2), 155–73, doi: 10.1386/jaah.8.2.155_1 

Dupuis, S.L., Kontos, P., Mitchell, G., Jonas-Simpson, C., & Gray, J. (2016). Re-claiming citizenship through the arts. Special Issue on Citizenship, Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice, 15(3), 358-380. 

Gray, J., Kontos, P. (2015) Immersion, imagination and embodiment: moving beyond an aesthetic of objectivity in research-informed performance in health [31 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 16(2), Art. 29. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1502290. 

Book Chapters 

Gray, J., Setchell, J. with Donnelly, H. (In press) Applied performance practices of therapeutic clowns: A curated conversation with Helen Donnelly. A. Breed & T. Prentki (Eds) The Routledge Companion to Applied Performance. London, UK: Routledge.

Gray, J., Kontos, P., Dupuis, S., Mitchell, G., Jonas-Simpson, C. (2017) Dementia (re)performed: Interrogating tensions between relational engagement and regulatory policies in care homes through theatre. S. Chivers and U. Kreibernegg (Eds) Care Home Stories: Aging, Disability, and Long-term Residential Care, (pp. 105-120). Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript-Verlag. 

Gray, J. & Mitchell, G. (2016) Considering Aesthetics: bringing new awareness to patient safety culture in hospitals. G. Belliveau and G. Lea (Eds) Research-based theatre: An Artistic Methodology, (pp. 77-88). Bristol, UK: Intellect. 

CQ teaching 

Winter 2019: Julia co-taught ‘Theory and Method for Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction (JRP1000)” with Dr. Janet Parsons