# Puppet Studies [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppetry) ( Ancient origins; academic field est. late 20th century ) ## Description Puppetry theory, including puppet design and construction, the uncanny life of the object-performer, and disability and cross-cultural readings of the puppet body — how puppets stage questions of animacy, agency, and personhood. ## Key Tags #puppet-studies #uncanny ## Essential Works - Gross, Kenneth. *Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life*. University of Chicago Press, 2011. - Core theoretical text on the puppet's uncanny liveliness and its relation to Freud's *das Unheimliche* - Purcell-Gates, Laura, and Emma Fisher. "Puppetry as Reinforcement or Rupture of Cultural Perceptions of the Disabled Body." *Research in Drama Education* 22, no. 3 (2017): 363–72. - Disability-studies reading of the puppet body - Plowright, Poh Sim. "The Desacralization of Puppetry: A Case History from Rajasthan." *New Theatre Quarterly* 21, no. 3 (2005): 273–98. - Cross-cultural case study on puppetry's shift from ritual to secular entertainment ## Details ### Key Theorists %% none yet %% ### Exemplary Practitioners %% none yet %% ### Related Concepts - [[The Body]] - the puppet body as a limit case for embodiment and animacy - [[Monster Studies]] - shares the uncanny as a shared theoretical frame (#uncanny) ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Associated Movements or Institutions %% none yet %% ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Graeber, David. *On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets*. n.d. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography Fraley, Chad D. "Design and Construction of the Audrey II Puppet Series for the Play 'Little Shop of Horrors.'" M.A. thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2007. [https://www.proquest.com/docview/304864037/abstract/57472D7328A6417APQ/1](https://www.proquest.com/docview/304864037/abstract/57472D7328A6417APQ/1). Gross, Kenneth. *Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life*. University of Chicago Press, 2011. *Hand Puppets: How to Make and Use Them*. Courier Corporation, 1989. Littlepage, Eric Lee. "Puppets with a Purpose." n.d. Mesas Escobar, Eva Cristina. "El títere como herramienta de trabajo en Arteterapia." *Arteterapia. Papeles de arteterapia y educación artística para la inclusión social* 10 (January 2016): 301–17. [https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_ARTE.2015.v10.51698](https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_ARTE.2015.v10.51698). Orenstein, Claudia. "Our Puppets, Our Selves: Puppetry's Changing Paradigms." *Mime Journal* 26, no. 1 (2017): 91–110. [https://doi.org/10.5642/mimejournal.20172601.012](https://doi.org/10.5642/mimejournal.20172601.012). Plowright, Poh Sim. "The Desacralization of Puppetry: A Case History from Rajasthan." *New Theatre Quarterly* 21, no. 3 (2005): 273–98. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X05000163](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X05000163). Purcell-Gates, Laura, and Emma Fisher. "Puppetry as Reinforcement or Rupture of Cultural Perceptions of the Disabled Body." *Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance* 22, no. 3 (2017): 363–72. [https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1329652](https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1329652). "Sixty-Eight Ways to Make Giant Puppets." n.d. Trimingham, Melissa. "How to Think a Puppet." *Forum Modernes Theater* 26, no. 1 (2011): 121–36.