Editorial

This editorial for Early Theatre issue 28.1 (June 2025) thanks outgoing editorial advisory board members, welcomes new advisory board members and our new graduate editorial assistant, and reflects on the collective labours of scholarly publishing

Griselda Fights Back: Converting the Prodigal Husband in The London Prodigal

Scholars often contextualize the faithful wife archetype as an iteration of the exhaustingly obedient ‘Patient Griselda’ trope. However, this essay demonstrates the significance of these characters to conversion narratives, showing the agency and power wives were granted to return their wayward husbands to family values, economic and sexual restraint, and the spread of Christianity through reproduction. The London Prodigal responds to topical discourses regarding women’s moral responsibility toward men, staging scenarios in which a wife tames her husband without threatening patriarchal structures and is celebrated for it. The play thus offers an important contribution for studying gendered patterns of conversion

Social and political barriers of renewable energy sources (RES) development in Poland

Poland, as one of the post-Soviet countries, has been heavily relying on natural gas import from Russia. In addition, this country generates a large amount of electricity through hard coal/lignite coal combustion that engenders a great measure of greenhouse gas emission.  The EU recommends Poland to decrease the greenhouse gas emission, and in a gradual pace to meet the EU’s goals and objectives of building a sustainable environment bolstered by a successful energy transition. To Poland, energy transition is urgent and alarming. Poland has initiated its energy plan till the year of 2040 and has aimed at a comprehensive transition to sustainable energy system. A well-balanced energy transformation cannot distance from technology innovation and development co-functioning with smooth and successful policy-making and implementation. Poland, as a receiving country of foreign direct capital and high technology in the EU, is facing multiple obfuscations to reform its energy systems and to radicalize the nation’s renewable energies development.  What are Poland’s social and political barriers of renewable energy sources (RES) development? This article intends to offer answers to this question

De l’importance d’un nom : : l’histoire de deux diagnostics, et pourquoi les mots importent lorsqu’on parle de santé mentale

Abstract: This essay reflects on my mental health journey that began when I first received a diagnosis of bipolar II disorder at age 18. After countless ineffective treatments and conflicting diagnoses over the course of my young adult years, by the time I was 23, I feared that my condition would never improve. However, a family members’ autism diagnosis prompted me to pursue an assessment myself. After two years on a waitlist, I received a diagnosis of Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder, which changed my perception of myself and led to a massively improved quality of life. This transformative experience showed me the importance of informed and compassionate care, and the need for a more nuanced understanding of mental health conditions and the language used to describe them.Cet essai est une réflexion sur mon parcours de santé mentale qui a commencé lorsque j’ai d’abord reçu un diagnostic de trouble bipolaire II à 18 ans. Après d’innombrables traitements inefficaces et des diagnostics contradictoires au cours de mes années de jeune adulte, je craignais, à 23 ans, que mon état ne s’améliore jamais. Cependant, le diagnostic d’autisme d’un membre de ma famille m’a incité à procéder moi-même à une évaluation. Après deux ans sur une liste d’attente, j’ai reçu un diagnostic de trouble du spectre de l’autisme de niveau 1, ce qui a changé ma perception de moi-même et m’a permis d’améliorer considérablement ma qualité de vie. Cette expérience transformatrice m’a montré l’importance d’une prise en charge informée et compatissante, ainsi que la nécessité d’une compréhension plus nuancée des troubles mentaux et du langage utilisé pour les décrire

Taken Boys and Mistaken Benevolence in the Early Modern English Theatre and the Virginia Company

This article analyzes overlooked evidence concerning the conscription of boys by early modern English choirs and theatre companies, arguing that legal and cultural representations depicted these abductions as benevolent while violating consent. It further speculates that points of contact between the theatrical economy and the Virginia Company may have prompted authorities to use a parallel mode of impressment to take Powhatan children to populate Henrico College. I argue that the practices of coercion and abduction on the English stage can provide a useful framework for understanding the rhetoric of benign subservience that the English authorities cultivated in an Atlantic context

Conceptualising an inclusive approach to student voice in higher education: A heuristic inquiry

Higher education seeks the student voice through various approaches. However, including students with diverse learner needs (DLN) in these approaches poses challenges when hierarchy is present. Through self-reflection and collaboration with co-researchers, I engaged in heuristic inquiry to develop a framework for engaging in an inclusive approach to gathering student voice. Nine co-researchers completed 14 individual conversational interviews with me to discuss their student voice experiences in higher education. Five key themes emerged: (1) needing a trauma-informed safe space to regulate emotions, (2) removing judgement through implementing trauma-informed practice, (3) embracing understanding and representation to enable authentic interaction, (4) removing fear by humanising those in positions of power, and (5) needing choice and autonomy. These themes demonstrated DLN students’ desire to cease masking and become more autonomous and authentic in their experiences, thereby moving toward partnership approaches. Drawing on these themes, I an inclusive student voice (ISV) approach and recommendations for practice

Understanding Naturalism With Quine From Within Science and History

In this essay, I present Quine’s fragmented and often forgotten views on writing history. However, this needs to be done in conjunction with an examination of his notion of science as our “total world-picture.” Quine elegantly avoids the task of specifying a demarcation criterion of science. The result is to position science as a Wittgensteinian language game that gradually expanded from its purpose of predicting our experiences and became socio-historically institutionalized set of practices. Thus, this essay has two aims; (i) I analyze Quine’s idiosyncratic, post-positivist concept of science with a particular focus on his inclusion of sciences that are traditionally labeled as soft or social. Then, (ii) I eventually indicate how Quine deals with historical inquiry. When taken together, this essay can also be read as a case study analysis of Quine’s take on all non-experimental modes of scientific inquiry, and, more broadly, his special account of naturalism and pragmatism

Carving out a path: Exploring the impact of a student-partnership led undergraduate conference through hands-on experiential research opportunities

This research paper examines a student-partnership project on developing the first undergraduate student conference in the Social Psychology Program at McMaster University. This article first situates our research within the broader pedagogical literature on student partnership and engagement in research-based learning opportunities, followed by an overview of the research methodology, including a discussion of the exit survey administered to the first conference participants in 2022. Further, we discuss significant findings and challenges that arose from this student-partnership project by reflecting on the experiences of the student-partner team members, examining feedback received from undergraduate student conference participants at the first undergraduate conference in the Social Psychology Program, and discussing how the original conference in January 2022 informed the development of the March 2023 and March 2024 conferences. We conclude with suggestions for future research in this area of student-partnership based research and share the lessons learned

Lynneth Miller Renberg. Women, Dance, and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2022.

This review considers Lynneth Miller Renberg\u27s Women, Dance, and Parish Religion in England, 1300–1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith

Mathew R. Martin, ed. Selimus by Robert Greene. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2022.

This review considers Mathew R. Martin\u27s edition of Selimus by Robert Greene