Matthew Tomkinson

He/They
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
Department Program
Education

Ph.D., Theatre Studies, University of British Columbia, 2022


About

Matthew Tomkinson is a writer, composer, and researcher based in Vancouver. He received his PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of British Columbia, where he studied sound within the Deaf, Disability, and Mad arts. His dissertation, “Mad Auralities: Sound and Sense in Contemporary Performance,” critically examines auditory simulations of mental health differences. As a composer and sound designer, he has presented his work locally and nationally at CBC Gem, Vancouver International Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal, and the PuSh Festival, among many others. His work has also been exhibited internationally throughout the US, Canada, Austria, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the UK. Recent collaborators and commissions include Ballet BC, Company 605, and the All Bodies Dance Project. He is the author of oems (Guernica Editions, 2022), Paroxysms (Paper View Books, 2022), For a Long Time (Frog Hollow Press, 2019), and co-author of Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press, 2020). Matthew lives and works on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), SEMYOME (Semiahmoo), and sc̓əwaθən məsteyəx (Tsawwassen) Nations.


Research

As a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at UBC CENES, Matthew Tomkinson’s current research examines adaptations of Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903), working toward a comprehensive production history of Schreberian adaptations from the mid-twentieth century onward. Surveying the memoir’s transformations across multiple media — including film, stage plays, radio dramas, literary works, operas, and installations — this monograph will highlight the shifting iterations of Schreber’s voice (and his voices) from adaptation to adaptation, alongside evolving perceptions of the “mad figure” in popular culture.


Publications

BOOK MANUSCRIPT

Sound and Sense in Contemporary Theatre: Mad Auralities, Palgrave Macmillan (Under Contract: publication expected 2025).

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

“A Surreal Science: Guy Maddin’s Foley of the Unconscious in Brand Upon the Brain! and Footsteps,” The Soundtrack (forthcoming, 2024)

“Voicing Schreber’s Voices: From Memoir to Multimedia and Beyond,” Oxford Handbook of Media and Vocality (forthcoming, 2024)

“Opera by Telephone in the Pacific Northwest, ca.1895,” Theatre Research in Canada (forthcoming, 2024)

“The Latent Present: Lags, Delays, and Other Temporal Disjunctions,” Sounding Out! (2024)

“Notes on Mad Listening,” Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry (2023)

“Reverse Search,” Sonic Scope: New Approaches to Audiovisual Culture (2021)

“Cast-off Casts: The Orthopaedic Imagination in Dear Evan Hansen and Lady Bird,” Anthem Press (2020)

“Staging Anxiety in Rachel Aberle’s Still/Falling,” Theatre Research in Canada (2019)

“The Back-Body as a Supporting Figure in Contemporary Performance,” Performance Matters (2019)


Awards

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024)

Canada Council for the Arts: Research and Creation (2023)

BC Arts Council Award: Creative Writers (2023)

Errol Durbach Graduate Scholarship in Theatre (2022)

Faculty of Arts Graduate Award (2021, 2022)

President’s Academic Excellence Initiative PhD Award (2020, 2021, 2022)

Four Year Fellowships (4YF) Tuition Award (2021)

International Histories Research Cluster Grant (2020)

Stuart Keate Scholarship (2018, 2020)

UBC Public Scholars Initiative (PSI) (2020)

Canada Council for the Arts: Concept to Realization (2020)

Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Poole Award (2019)

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2018)

CATR Student Travel Subsidy (2018)

Graduate Student Travel Fund (2018)

Robert G. Lawrence Prize (shortlisted candidate, top three) (2017)

University of British Columbia Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (2017)

SSHRC Masters Scholarship (2017)

Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship (2015)

Simon Fraser University Undergraduate Open Scholarship (2012)


Matthew Tomkinson

He/They
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
Department Program
Education

Ph.D., Theatre Studies, University of British Columbia, 2022


About

Matthew Tomkinson is a writer, composer, and researcher based in Vancouver. He received his PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of British Columbia, where he studied sound within the Deaf, Disability, and Mad arts. His dissertation, “Mad Auralities: Sound and Sense in Contemporary Performance,” critically examines auditory simulations of mental health differences. As a composer and sound designer, he has presented his work locally and nationally at CBC Gem, Vancouver International Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal, and the PuSh Festival, among many others. His work has also been exhibited internationally throughout the US, Canada, Austria, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the UK. Recent collaborators and commissions include Ballet BC, Company 605, and the All Bodies Dance Project. He is the author of oems (Guernica Editions, 2022), Paroxysms (Paper View Books, 2022), For a Long Time (Frog Hollow Press, 2019), and co-author of Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press, 2020). Matthew lives and works on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), SEMYOME (Semiahmoo), and sc̓əwaθən məsteyəx (Tsawwassen) Nations.


Research

As a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at UBC CENES, Matthew Tomkinson’s current research examines adaptations of Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903), working toward a comprehensive production history of Schreberian adaptations from the mid-twentieth century onward. Surveying the memoir’s transformations across multiple media — including film, stage plays, radio dramas, literary works, operas, and installations — this monograph will highlight the shifting iterations of Schreber’s voice (and his voices) from adaptation to adaptation, alongside evolving perceptions of the “mad figure” in popular culture.


Publications

BOOK MANUSCRIPT

Sound and Sense in Contemporary Theatre: Mad Auralities, Palgrave Macmillan (Under Contract: publication expected 2025).

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

“A Surreal Science: Guy Maddin’s Foley of the Unconscious in Brand Upon the Brain! and Footsteps,” The Soundtrack (forthcoming, 2024)

“Voicing Schreber’s Voices: From Memoir to Multimedia and Beyond,” Oxford Handbook of Media and Vocality (forthcoming, 2024)

“Opera by Telephone in the Pacific Northwest, ca.1895,” Theatre Research in Canada (forthcoming, 2024)

“The Latent Present: Lags, Delays, and Other Temporal Disjunctions,” Sounding Out! (2024)

“Notes on Mad Listening,” Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry (2023)

“Reverse Search,” Sonic Scope: New Approaches to Audiovisual Culture (2021)

“Cast-off Casts: The Orthopaedic Imagination in Dear Evan Hansen and Lady Bird,” Anthem Press (2020)

“Staging Anxiety in Rachel Aberle’s Still/Falling,” Theatre Research in Canada (2019)

“The Back-Body as a Supporting Figure in Contemporary Performance,” Performance Matters (2019)


Awards

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024)

Canada Council for the Arts: Research and Creation (2023)

BC Arts Council Award: Creative Writers (2023)

Errol Durbach Graduate Scholarship in Theatre (2022)

Faculty of Arts Graduate Award (2021, 2022)

President’s Academic Excellence Initiative PhD Award (2020, 2021, 2022)

Four Year Fellowships (4YF) Tuition Award (2021)

International Histories Research Cluster Grant (2020)

Stuart Keate Scholarship (2018, 2020)

UBC Public Scholars Initiative (PSI) (2020)

Canada Council for the Arts: Concept to Realization (2020)

Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Poole Award (2019)

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2018)

CATR Student Travel Subsidy (2018)

Graduate Student Travel Fund (2018)

Robert G. Lawrence Prize (shortlisted candidate, top three) (2017)

University of British Columbia Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (2017)

SSHRC Masters Scholarship (2017)

Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship (2015)

Simon Fraser University Undergraduate Open Scholarship (2012)


Matthew Tomkinson

He/They
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
Department Program
Education

Ph.D., Theatre Studies, University of British Columbia, 2022

About keyboard_arrow_down

Matthew Tomkinson is a writer, composer, and researcher based in Vancouver. He received his PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of British Columbia, where he studied sound within the Deaf, Disability, and Mad arts. His dissertation, “Mad Auralities: Sound and Sense in Contemporary Performance,” critically examines auditory simulations of mental health differences. As a composer and sound designer, he has presented his work locally and nationally at CBC Gem, Vancouver International Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal, and the PuSh Festival, among many others. His work has also been exhibited internationally throughout the US, Canada, Austria, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the UK. Recent collaborators and commissions include Ballet BC, Company 605, and the All Bodies Dance Project. He is the author of oems (Guernica Editions, 2022), Paroxysms (Paper View Books, 2022), For a Long Time (Frog Hollow Press, 2019), and co-author of Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press, 2020). Matthew lives and works on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), SEMYOME (Semiahmoo), and sc̓əwaθən məsteyəx (Tsawwassen) Nations.

Research keyboard_arrow_down

As a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at UBC CENES, Matthew Tomkinson’s current research examines adaptations of Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903), working toward a comprehensive production history of Schreberian adaptations from the mid-twentieth century onward. Surveying the memoir’s transformations across multiple media — including film, stage plays, radio dramas, literary works, operas, and installations — this monograph will highlight the shifting iterations of Schreber’s voice (and his voices) from adaptation to adaptation, alongside evolving perceptions of the “mad figure” in popular culture.

Publications keyboard_arrow_down

BOOK MANUSCRIPT

Sound and Sense in Contemporary Theatre: Mad Auralities, Palgrave Macmillan (Under Contract: publication expected 2025).

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

“A Surreal Science: Guy Maddin’s Foley of the Unconscious in Brand Upon the Brain! and Footsteps,” The Soundtrack (forthcoming, 2024)

“Voicing Schreber’s Voices: From Memoir to Multimedia and Beyond,” Oxford Handbook of Media and Vocality (forthcoming, 2024)

“Opera by Telephone in the Pacific Northwest, ca.1895,” Theatre Research in Canada (forthcoming, 2024)

“The Latent Present: Lags, Delays, and Other Temporal Disjunctions,” Sounding Out! (2024)

“Notes on Mad Listening,” Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry (2023)

“Reverse Search,” Sonic Scope: New Approaches to Audiovisual Culture (2021)

“Cast-off Casts: The Orthopaedic Imagination in Dear Evan Hansen and Lady Bird,” Anthem Press (2020)

“Staging Anxiety in Rachel Aberle’s Still/Falling,” Theatre Research in Canada (2019)

“The Back-Body as a Supporting Figure in Contemporary Performance,” Performance Matters (2019)

Awards keyboard_arrow_down

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024)

Canada Council for the Arts: Research and Creation (2023)

BC Arts Council Award: Creative Writers (2023)

Errol Durbach Graduate Scholarship in Theatre (2022)

Faculty of Arts Graduate Award (2021, 2022)

President’s Academic Excellence Initiative PhD Award (2020, 2021, 2022)

Four Year Fellowships (4YF) Tuition Award (2021)

International Histories Research Cluster Grant (2020)

Stuart Keate Scholarship (2018, 2020)

UBC Public Scholars Initiative (PSI) (2020)

Canada Council for the Arts: Concept to Realization (2020)

Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Poole Award (2019)

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2018)

CATR Student Travel Subsidy (2018)

Graduate Student Travel Fund (2018)

Robert G. Lawrence Prize (shortlisted candidate, top three) (2017)

University of British Columbia Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (2017)

SSHRC Masters Scholarship (2017)

Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship (2015)

Simon Fraser University Undergraduate Open Scholarship (2012)