Professor Tom Maguire Inaugural Lecture

In this lecture, Tom Maguire argues that even while we are in the middle of a storytelling boom, we need to question the impact of telling stories to children. Instead of storytelling as a one-way process undertaken by adults to children, he proposes instead alternative models that support storymaking with children as a collaborative, critical and creative relationship in which children’s agency is acknowledged and supported.

This lecture is delivered in conjunction with Young at Art’s Professional Delegate programme as part of the Belfast Children’s Festival.

This is Tom's inaugural lecture as Professor of Contemporary Drama and Performance at Ulster University where he is the Head of the School of Arts & Humanities. He has published widely in the fields of Irish theatre and Scottish theatre, as well as in the areas of Theatre for Young Audiences and Storytelling Performance. In 2012 he co-edited the first anthology of scholarly essays on Theatre for Young Audiences in the UK with Dr Karian Schuitema, Theatre for Young Audiences in the UK. His monograph Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage was published in 2015.

From 2021-24, Tom served as Chair of the Board of the International Theatre for Young Audiences Research Network (ITYARN), one of the constituent networks of ASSITEJ, the international association for theatre for young audiences. He was a research advisor to the ASSITEJ project, Building Collective Resilience, funded by Creative Europe, 2021-24. He is a co-founder of the Talking TYA research network in Ireland.