Term · Method
Eurocentrism in Theatre History
The tendency to treat European forms as the norm and other traditions as derivative, exotic, or 'pre-theatrical'.
Many twentieth-century survey textbooks began with Greece, moved through Rome, medieval Europe, and the Renaissance, and treated Asian, African, and Indigenous American performance in separate, shorter chapters, if at all. Terms like 'ritual' were sometimes reserved for non-European practices and 'theatre' for European ones.
Recent textbooks and curricula have tried to restructure the field globally, though scholars debate whether adding traditions to a European timeline is enough.