I am a scholar and an artist and have worked at universities in Canada and Britain. My appointment at Western began in July 2020 and situates me between FIMS and the new Creative Arts module (CAP), currently in development.
This academic year I am teaching three new courses: one on the politics of memory, one on digital writing for the Digital Certificate, and another which offers an introduction to the Creative Arts for the soft launch of CAP. I am also assisting Dr Grant Campbell with MIT 1025: First Year Foundations, a writing intensive course that offers writing instruction from the standpoint of media and information studies.
My principal research expertise and publications have focused on the late British playwright Harold Pinter, with special emphasis on his political drama and activism and the affective dimension of his work in those two arenas. More recently my research and publications have considered the stakes for citizen subjectivity under contemporary capitalism, the politics of memory, and the relationship between artistic influence and originality. From 2017 to 2019 I was Research Fellow at the University of Leeds on an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project entitled Harold Pinter: Histories and Legacies. My work there involved interviewing industry professionals and populating and curating an open-access database that captures the British production history of Pinter’s works for stage, screen, and radio; the experience inspiring a further research interest in the Digital Humanities. I am passionate about language, its politics and possibilities, and have extensive experience teaching university-level writing and composition. My background as an artist entails work as a professional musician—performing, recording, composing, and teaching—and as an actor and creative writer; experience which informs my teaching and research in significant ways.
Chiasson, B., and C. Fallow, eds (2021), Harold Pinter: Stages, Networks, Collaborations, London: Bloomsbury.
Chiasson, B. (2021), "Pinter’s Modernism(s) Revisited: A Drama Reliant upon Prose." In Harold Pinter: Stages, Networks, Collaborations, B. Chiasson and C. Fallow, eds, 15-41, London:Bloomsbury.
___ (2020), "Harold Pinter's Remembrance of Things Political: What Memory Meant for the Citizen." The Harold Pinter Review: Essays on Contemporary Drama 4.1 (May): 1-19.
___ (2019), Review of W. Baker Pinter’s World: Relationships, Obsessions, and Artistic Endeavors, Modern Drama 62(3): 366-68. DOI: 10.3138/md.62.3.br3.
___ (2018), "Simon Stephens, Birdland, and a Few Affects of Neoliberalization." Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 6.2: 331-57. DOI: 10.1515/jcde-2018-0029.
___ (2017), The Late Harold Pinter: Political Dramatist, Poet and Activist, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
___ (2017), Review of M. Wickstrom Performance in the Blockades of Neoliberalism: Thinking the Political Anew, Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance 7.1 (Oct.): 48-50.
___ (2014), "Pinter's Political Dramas: Staging Neoliberal Discourse and Authoritarianism." In M. Taylor-Batty's The Theatre of Harold Pinter, 249-67, London: Bloomsbury. DOI: 10.5040/9781408175293.
___ (2013), "Harold Pinter's 'More Precisely Political' Dramas, or a Post-1983 Economy of Affect." Modern Drama 56.1: 80-101. DOI: 10.1353/mdr.2013.0007.
___ (2009), "(Re)Thinking Harold Pinter’s Comedy of Menace." In M. Brewer, ed, Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, 31-54, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. DOI: 10.1163/9789042028920_004.
