Gideon Ime Morison

Gideon Morison currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at Kate Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect. His research draws on fields such as theatre/media history,  performance theory, literary criticism, development communication, festival and comparative cultural studies to analyse (neo/de)colonial dynamics in knowledge, cultural and artistic productions and their development infrastructures. At global dis:connect, Gideon explores the archive of African postcolonial festivals, especially the theatrical and material collections linked to their organisation as spectacles of African cultural renaissance and development. Using Lowry’s ‘disputed archives’ as a lens, the project examines the prospects, challenges and technical infrastructures required to transform the FESTAC ‘77 and CBAAC collections into a digitised archive that grants borderless access to the movements, organisers, scholar-artists and participants associated with these epoch-defining events.

Gideon Morison is a poet, researcher, scholar, creative artist and cultural critic. He studied theatre, film and media at the Universities of Calabar and Uyo, where he also served as an editor and academic assistant. Before completing his PhD at the LMU Munich in the ERC Project Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in the Developing World after 1945, Gideon lectured at the Federal College of Education (Technical) Omoku, leading the Department of Theatre Arts for more than a term.

Along with his research and scholarship, Gideon Morison has worked with the Calabar University Theatre (CUT), Greenwich Media Plus, Finest Communications and Arts Pro Vita in realising theatre and developmental media projects such as Inside Atimbo (web series), Marriage Not Wedding (short film), The Marooned (short film), Brunt (short film), Man-Child Blues (stage play), Linda’s Joint (radio drama), Ifufe (short film), The Twist (radio/TV drama), Ekpogogoro (stage play) as well as Blood and Bondage (stage play).  In addition to publishing a number of journal articles, Gideon’s poetry has been published in Global Insides, a collection of poems that document Covid’s transformational impact across the globe in 2020.

Morison, Gideon (with Judith Rottenburg). ‘Infrastructures for Black/African Renaissance: Cultural Institution Building and Organisational Frameworks in Selected Postcolonial Pan-African Festivals’, in Developing Theatre in the Global South: Institutions, Networks, Experts, edited by Nic Leonhardt and Christopher Balme. London: UCL Press (forthcoming).

Morison, Gideon. ‘Theatre for Influence: American Cultural and Philanthropic Missions in West Africa during the Early Cold War’, in Performing the Cold War in the Postcolonial World: Theatre, Film, Literature and Things, edited by Christopher Balme. London: Routledge, 2023. DOI:10.4324/9781003196334-5

Morison, Gideon (with Ofonime Inyang). ‘Comparative Overview of Black Identity, Integration and Cultural Citizenship in Emerging Pan-African Festivals’, in Theatre, Media and National Integration in a Globalizing World, edited by Liwhu Betiang and Esekong Andrew-Essien. Newcastle Upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022.

Morison, Gideon. ‘Undercurrents of Anglo-American Collaboration: Funding, Training and Cold War Influences on the Theatre Studies Curriculum of Selected Nigerian Universities’, Journal of Global Theatre History – Special Issue “Cold War University”, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2020): 24-39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5282/gthj/5152

Click here for Gideons CV, including a full list of publications.