Eero Laine
PhD
Research Topics
Theatre Studies
Education
- PhD, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- MA, New York University
- BA, St. Cloud State University
Bio
Eero Laine has published widely on topics at the intersections of theatre, labor, sport, and performance. He is part of various international research cohorts developing collaborative methodologies for performance scholarship. This work stems from the Performing Ends initiative and network (performingends.com), which is a multimodal and international group of performance studies practitioners and scholars working to reconsider research methodologies in the arts amidst emerging and enduring crises and other apparent ends.
Eero is currently developing research that examines performances of wilderness and waterways. His project “Performing International Wilderness: A Study Examining the History and Performance of Natural Areas Along the International Border Route Waterways in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (USA) and the Quetico Provincial Park (Canada)” is supported by the UB Offices of International Education and Vice President for Research and Economic Development.
At UB, Eero is one of the project leaders of the Great Lakes Climate Theatre Initiative, which works across science and the arts to consider climate futures in Western New York and beyond. The project “Toward a Climate Haven: Preparing for Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region by Combining Performance and Science” was supported by funds for Seed Projects in Arts and Sciences Research and Creative Activities (SPARC) from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Eero is a former department chair for Theatre and Dance and has also served as director of graduate studies and director of theatre studies. He supervises PhD and MA research and sits on MFA thesis committees. He leads graduate courses in theatre and performance studies, directs for the department production season, and teaches across the dramatic literature and theatre history curriculum.
Eero is a co-editor of Lateral (csalateral.org), the journal of the Cultural Studies Association. His current editing work also includes a book on pedagogy and performance, another on materiality and theatre history, and a third in development on wilderness and performance. He is also editing a special journal issue on the topic of scale and performance. Eero is working on a number of book projects across a range of subjects including commercial performance, homosocial relationality, and editing as a creative act.
Books
Maria Shantelle Alexies Ambayec, Kristof van Baarle, Peter Burke, Renata Gaspar, Sozita Goudouna, Nilufer Gros, Adham Hafez, Jan-Tage Kuehling, Eero Laine, Sarah Lucie, Evan Moritz, Juliana Martins Rodrigues de Moraes, Malin Palani, Rumen Rachev, Aneta Stojnić. Mourning the Ends: Collaborative Writing and Performance. Advanced Methods: New Research Ontologies Series. Punctum Press, 2025.
Eero Laine. Professional Wrestling and the Commercial Stage. New York: Routledge, 2020.
Edited Volumes and Special Journal Issues
Robert Carley, Anne Donlon, Beenash Jafri, Laura Kwak, Eero Laine, SAJ, Chris Alen Sula, editors. Cultural Studies at the Interregnum. Temple University Press, 2025.
Sozita Goudouna, Eleni Koliopoulou, Eero Laine, and Rumen Rachev, editors. “On the Mundane.” Performance Research 28, no. 4 (2023).
Michael Altman, Jessica Fontaine, and Eero Laine, editors. “Kayfabe: Working Theories.” Special Issue. Professional Wrestling Studies Journal 3, no. 1 (2022).
Eero Laine and Broderick Chow, editors. Sports Plays. New York: Routledge, 2022.
Kevin Brown, Felipe Cervera, Kyoko Iwaki, Eero Laine, and Kristof van Baarle editors. “Collaborative Research in Theatre and Performance Studies.” Joint Special Issue of Global Performance Studies 4, no. 2 (2021) and the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 36, no. 1 (Fall 2021).
Sharon Mazer, Heather Levi, Eero Laine, and Nell Haynes, editors. Professional Wrestling: Politics and Populism. Calcutta: Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Articles and Chapters
Broderick Chow and Eero Laine. “A Screen Archive of Asian Bros: Casting Masculinity and Performing Stereotypes.” Studies in Theatre and Performance 45 (2025).
Kacey Stewart, Susan Clark, Eero Laine, Lynne Koscielniak, Timothy Chevral. “Climate Futures at Play: Performing Environmental Public Humanities.” Public Humanities 1 (2025): e87.
Ben Spatz, SAJ, Eero Laine, Michelle Liu Carriger, and Henry Bial. “The Unbearable Whiteness of John Brown: Theatrical Legacies and Performing Abolition.” Theatre Journal 76, no. 3 (September 2024).
Ben Spatz, SAJ, Eero Laine, Michelle Liu Carriger, and Henry Bial. “Looking at/for John Brown.” Theatre Journal 76, no. 3 (September 2024).
Sozita Goudouna, Eero Laine, Sarah Lucie, Rumen Rachev, Aneta Stojnić, Kristof van Baarle. “Driving a Driverless Train: Exhausting Extras and Automated Performance.” PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research 6, no. 1 (2024).
Eric Villanueva Dela Cruz, Gillian Dyson, Renata Gaspar, Sozita Goudouna, Tasha Haines, Eero Laine, Birgit Larson, Vahri McKenzie, Jimena Ortúzar, Sandamini Ranwalage, Anna Tzakou, and Evelyn Wan. “Everywhere, All the Time, 3:42—Collaborative Encounters with the Mundane.” Performance Research 28, no. 4 (2023): i–xxix, 5 –6, 139.
Michelle Liu Carriger and Eero Laine. “‘Cultivating a Small Field’”: On the Work of Citation in Theatre and Performance Studies Scholarship.” Theatre Topics 33, no. 2 (July 2023): 83–89.
Michelle Liu Carriger and Eero Laine, “The Labor of Academic Journals; Or, Is Anyone Going to Read This?” Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History 15 (2023): 59–63.
Rustom Bharucha, Felipe Cervera, Steve Dixon, Eva Horn, Kyoko Iwaki, Eero Laine, Zarina Muhammad, Amanda Piña, and Kristof van Baarle. “Collaboration and Co-Finitude: An Agenda of Care and Ends.” Performance Research 27, no. 6–7 (2022): 15–25.
Eero Laine and Peter Zazzali. “Redirecting Canonicity: PhD Exams and Actor Training.” Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US, edited by Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore, and Angela Farr Schiller. New York: Routledge, 2022.
Shawn Chua, Sozita Goudouna, Adham Hafez, Eero Laine, Sarah Lucie, Juliana Martins Rodrigues de Moraes, Malin Palani, Rumen Rachev, and Leah Sidi. “Theatre Essentials in Three Acts: Collaboration, Care, Time." Theatre Topics 31, no. 2 (July 2021): 99–111.
Taylor Black, Shawn Chua, Eero Laine, Milton Lim, Rumen Rachev, Soo Ryon Yoon. “ElastiCity: Performance Studies and Theme Parks.” GPS: Global Performance Studies 4, no. 1 (2021). https://gps.psi-web.org/article/view/67/64
Renata Gaspar, Sozita Goudouna, Nilüfer Ovalıoğlu Gros, Jan-Tage Kühling, Eero Laine, Sarah Lucie, Juliana Moraes, Evan Moritz, Malin Palani, Kristof van Baarle. “De onmogelijke toeschouwer: Een collectief essay [The Impossible Spectator: A Collective Essay].” Translated by Kristof van Baarle. E-tcetera #165 (September 2021.
Eero Laine. “No Men, No Boats: Directing and Dance Dramaturgy for Jaclyn Backhaus’ Men on Boats.” Theatre/Practice 9 (2020).
Eero Laine and Janet Werther. “Rehearsing Men on Boats: A Dialogue.” Theatre/Practice 9 (2020).
Felipe Cervera and Eero Laine. “The Planet, Everyday: Towards Collaborative Performance Studies.” Text and Performance Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2020): 90–107.