Oral, ritual, and shamanic performance -- Religious and civic festivals: early drama and theatre in context -- Imperial theatre: pleasure, power, and aesthetics -- Theatre and the state, 1600-1900 -- Theatres for knowledge through feeling, 1700-1900 -- Theatre, nation, and empire, 1750-1900 -- Theatres of popular entertainment, 1850-1970 -- Theatre of the avant-garde and their legacy, 1880-1970 -- Theatres for reform and revolution, 1880-1990 -- Rich and poor theatres of globalization -- Director, text, and performance in the postmodern world -- Interculturalism, hybridity, tourism : the performing world on new terms.