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Friday, February 2810:30 am – 12:00 pm Panel 1: Space, Place, and the Post-Human (SAC 3.116)Moderator: Dr. Karen GrumbergShukri Bana & Ashley Bennett, UT Austin“Young, Black, Wild, and Free: Embodying the American Cyborg in Dirty Computer”Bryanna Barrera, UT Austin “No longer the Strange Bird, but always the Strange Bird”: Technology, the Human, and the Non-human Animal in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird”Sezen Sayinalp, Bahcesehir University, Turkey“ Performing the Self in Chantal Akerman’s Two Movies, News from Home and No Home Movie” Presenter Bios and AbstractsShukri Bana & Ashley Bennett, UT Austin“Young, Black, Wild, and Free: Embodying the American Cyborg in Dirty Computer”BIO: N/AABSTRACT: “The Cyborg Manifesto,” (1985) a canonical feminist text by philosopher Donna Haraway, often critiqued for its inaccessible language, is a groundbreaking text in a new tradition of socialist, feminist, and technology-based thought that critiques the binary between human and machine. In this essay, we read into the gaps by pairing this text with Janelle Monaé’s emotion picture, Dirty Computer (2018). We argue this performance embodies many of the theories put forward by Haraway, in addition to feminist scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa and Sara Ahmed, in order to re-conceptualize how to make this framework accessible and as such, making revolution an accessible, black, and quare concept. The black future imagined by Monaé is both utopia and dystopia—it is in fact the relationship between the two that informs and grapples with the embodied realities for the “Dirty Computers” that Monaé, through this performance, begins to imagine freedom. In an era that daily steps closer to dystopia, Monaé’s performance revisits the ever-relevant cyborg, including critical additions, such as emotion, queerness, and blackness.Bryanna Barrera, UT Austin “No longer the Strange Bird, but always the Strange Bird”: Technology, the Human, and the Non-human Animal in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird”BIO: Bryanna Barrera is a first year in the English PhD program and a graduate portfolio student in the Mexican American & Latino/a Studies department. Her research focuses on contemporary Chican@/x fiction, specifically migrant narratives, and its relationship with the environment and affect— specifically geographical boundaries as political?borders, Chican@/x environmentalism and pain.?ABSTRACT: Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird constructs a figure that extends beyond the human, non-human animal, and biotechnical body binary by genetically positioning itself in both categories. The Strange Bird’s genetic makeup, as imposed via biotechnical engineering from the hands of humans, is described as “avian, overlaid with Homo Sapiens, other terrestrial life-forms,” with an overall “unstable mélange” (11). Through the human induced surgical manipulation of the SB’s material and genetic form the novel offers a depiction of the appearing non-human animal body that is made into an apparatus of discipline for humans to exert their political dominance over. The proposed paper will argue the ethical implications of post-humanist motivated procedures in the novel that attempt to decenter the human, abandon species categories, and pursue an ecocentric society, suggesting that while it may appear generative to abandon the distinct separation between human, non-human animals and technology the result is actually more harmful than one may hope when both the subject and it’s human neighbors are incapable of conceiving of a body and mind that simultaneously occupies both the spaces of human and non-human animal. The proposed paper will venture to focus on the performativity of species-centered identity as the pivotal struggle of the Strange Bird as resultant from her interspecies genetic makeup, demonstrating the Strange Bird’s internal and external decomposition as due to her inability to self construct her own sense of identity with a world that cannot accept her existence, one that the human is wholly responsible for, as that beyond the body of the “other”.? Sezen Sayinalp, Bahcesehir University, Turkey“ Performing the Self in Chantal Akerman’s Two Movies, News from Home and No Home Movie” BIO: I’m Sezen Say?nalp. I’m a freelance film critic from Turkey. I studied psychology and then I study cinema for my master’s degree in Bah?e?ehir University in Turkey. Meanings of image and mise-en-scene creates self connections with history of cinema; and I try to explain this connection. That’s why, movies and criticism are important for my career. In addition, I want to participate as a critic to show other countries cinema traditions. I’m living in Turkey; and narrations of movies in this country allow to show ourcinema culture for the audiences who are living in other countries. I write about films?in movie magazines and online platforms in Turkey such as Arka Pencere, Sinema Se7en Mecmua, Apartman Sinemas?. I was one of the talent participants in 25th Sarajevo Film Festival in this year. I improve myself both criticism and academic writing in cinema.ABSTRACT: The concept of home comes across as a concept that many disciplines, especially psychology, focus on and should be examined within the framework of self theory. When we consider both the true meaning of leaving home and the metaphorical approaches that this separation reveals, we discover that it also contributes to narration in many ways. Two recent movies by Chantal Akerman News from Home and No Home Movie, create a vast field of discovery for us to explain this concept performance of the self. Akerman's experimental camera, which built this space, removed the house from its position of being an inanimate being, turning it into a breathing space and, moreover, a structure that explains the theory of attachment. In addition to all this, the fact that No Home Movie was the last film that Chantal Akerman shot before he died also has a structure that makes us question the impact that the theme of separation had on us in the audience.?This paper will discuss Akerman’s two movies in connection to these themes by also deploying the framework of Melanie Klein’s theory on the object relations since the metaphor of "leaving home" coincides with a turning point in an individual's journey to become their own and to gain identity and? leaving home often comes across in psychology as an explanation of a connection that pairs the mother with the House. The process of meeting and discovering the outside world points to a turning point that supports the process of becoming an individual and allows the individual to draw on his or her own space at the basis of the object relationship that one establishes with the mother. In other words, the relationship between leaving the mother and becoming aware of the self, as well as leaving home and gaining identity are also embodied in this theory that can also be interpreted as performance of the self. Finally, these two movies function as diaries that share all the details of Akerman's own life with the audience, contributing more to the idea of perfoming one’s own identity and self. Friday, February 2812:45 pm – 2:15 pmPanel 2: Performing Alterity (SAC 2.120)Moderator: Dr. Jason BorgeCésar Iván ?lvarez-Ibarra, UT Austin “Maricongrafía Regiomontana: Bodies, streets and performance as counter-hegemonic response to the elegebete homogenization in Monterrey, México.”Katie Von Wald, UC Santa Barbara “In Motion Towards Feeling: Queer Performance Challenging Hegemonic Psychiatry”Catherine Heiner, University of Washington “Authentic Sensations: Female Bodies and Creating Spiritual Affect”Presenter Bios and AbstractsCésar Iván ?lvarez-Ibarra, UT Austin “Maricongrafía Regiomontana: Bodies, streets and performance as counter-hegemonic response to the elegebete homogenization in Monterrey, México.”BIO: César was born, raised and educated (as an internationalist) in the city of Monterrey, México. He is a maricón M.A. student at the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and is a former High-School teacher at social sciences. His work centers in Latin-America cuir insurrections, cuir hygiene and counter hegemonic embodied resistances.ABSTRACT: The City of Monterrey, capital of the state of Nuevo León, is recognized as one of the main industrial and commercial knots of México, as well as an orthodox city at the north border of the country. Even with these neoliberal and conservative forced identities, the last ten years have meant a complete resignification of the public and private participation of LGBTT+ collectives and individuals in favor of sexual and gender diversity and their expressions. Although the recent political movements and collectives have achieved important victories for the representation and life-improvement of LGBTT+ people at Monterrey, most of them have also immerse on the homogenization of their identities and agendas in favor of the hegemony of elegebete respectability and hygiene; hegemony where the ideals of consumption, aesthetics and belonging to normative spaces top the political agendas. Given these homogenizing tendencies, the working class LGBTT+ radical sectors (which I relate to the term cuir) of Monterrey, have responded, resisted and refused through the continuity of the embodied performance of pleasure, leisure and radical activism in different spaces of the center of Monterrey. The present research, with the use participatory observation, theoretical revision, local LGBTT+ archival revision and interviews with cuir activists and writers of Monterrey, analyses the performatic resistances and refusals that cuir collectives perform in the search for pleasure and leisure that contest the hegemonic elegebete impositions on respectable and hygienic citizenship. The research specifically focuses in the spaces La Alameda Mariano Escobedo (leisure space and where cruising between men that have sex with men occurs), El Wateke/Jardin Bar (cuir cantina at the center for Monterrey) and La Casita Monterrey (space of anonymous sex encounters between men that have sex with men and for radical cuir activism).Catherine Heiner, University of Washington “Authentic Sensations: Female Bodies and Creating Spiritual Affect”BIO: N/AABSTRACT: Spiritualism, popularized by sisters Kate and Margaret Fox, gave audiences the opportunity to witness the mingling between the living and spirits of another sphere. Through séances, automatic writing, and spiritual translation, the Fox sisters demonstrated physical manifestations of spiritual encounters in their performances. Knowledge of the spiritual world could be discovered through somatic experiences, including knocking, corporeal touch, and material manipulation. Often, audiences could act as witnesses by experiencing emotional and affective shifts while the Fox sisters performed. Conversely, the rise of empirical approaches in science magnified distrust of spiritualism, and committees carried out inspections of the Fox sisters, including strict scrutinization of their physical bodies. Exploring the relationship between performing authentic acts of spiritualism and how this authenticity is both proven and contested through the body offers insights into the shifting boundaries of class and gender during the nineteenth century and the anxieties these shifts produced.Using theories of affect and sensory studies, I examine how spiritualist performances generate affect as a method of demonstrating authenticity. I argue that the Fox sisters’ affective capabilities allowed them to cross boundaries of gender, resulting in invasive investigations of the body. By using the experience of the Fox sisters as a case study, this approach will offer insight into the dynamics of gender and power at this time and how feminine bodies gained legibility in these public spaces through creating affect. Additionally, I extend this conversation to the physical inspections the Fox sisters were forced to undergo, analyzing ways that nineteenth century perspectives mapped authenticity onto bodies in performance to physicalize the reestablishment of class and gender boundaries.Friday, February 2812:45 pm – 2:15 pmPanel 3: Roundtable: Angry Black Muslim Women (SAC 3.116)Roda Osman, UT Austin Roqiya Osman, UT AustinSushana Dubriel, UT AustinPresenter Bios and AbstractsABSTRACT: Angry Black Muslim Woman is a multi-media, data, and statistic-based storytelling project about community and self-healing. We interview women of color about their personal experience with racism and patriarchy. Each interview is 3-5 minutes. The interview begins with an affirmation of the subject’s choice, one personal story regarding racism, and ends with an expression of gratitude from the subject to help viewers understand the power of giving testimony. For the conference we would like to have a discussion around the subject of “public empathy” and discuss how that affects women of color. We would like to share a few of our video testimonies as well as data and statistics regarding the subject. We would also like to share our platform with the attendees.Roda Osman, UT Austin BIO: N/ARoqiya Osman, UT AustinBIO: N/ASushana Dubriel, UT AustinBIO: N/A Friday, February 282:30 pm – 4:15 pmPanel 4: In the Archives of Dramatic Literature and Theory (SAC 2.120)Moderator: Dr. David KornhaberEric Flohr Reynolds, Emory University“Mimetic Acts: Repetitions of Identity and Difference”Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez, UT Austin““Baby, nothing has happened yet”: Performances of Pregnancy, Reproductive Anxiety, and Control in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Wedekind’s Spring Awakening”Thomas Rushin, UT Austin“The Christianity is Coming from Inside the House: The Play of the Sacrament and the Artifice of Conversion”Bianca Quintanilla, UT Austin“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Author, Inventor, and Goddess”Presenter Bios and AbstractsEric Flohr Reynolds, Emory University“Mimetic Acts: Repetitions of Identity and Difference”BIO: N/AABSTRACT: In the Poetics Aristotle famously defined the basic form of tragic drama as mimesis praxeos, the imitation of action. How are we to understand this act which imitates other activities? 20th and 21st century theoretical developments suggest new ways to reinterpret this foundational definition. Speech act theory and an expanded concept of linguistic performativity disrupts the classical differentiations between theory and praxis, between language and thought, between writing the event and the event of writing. But what does it mean to define action as inherently mimetic? How can we differentiate between acting in the theatrical sense, the linguistic sense, and the everyday pragmatic sense? And how could all of this contrast or complement psychoanalytic concepts of repetition and acting-out??Interpreting performance as constitutively citational-iterational means that performative activity is only possible in relation to the constraints of tradition/convention. The readability of a performance as a performance of something, as performing something, as enacting/re-enacting, relies on its relation to some horizon of signification. This means that performance is always bound up with memory and history, both individual and collective. And yet, if we take this to mean that performance is a passive repetition of a pre-existing reality, we lose any sense of its radical transformative potential, and the related possibility of creating something truly unprecedented. Rethinking mimesis and action today ought to challenge dogmatic assumptions about originality and innovation on one hand and fidelity and continuity on the other, while raising new questions about the relationship between action and the spontaneity of the will, and the fundamental temporal difference between constitution and citation.Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez, UT Austin““Baby, nothing has happened yet”: Performances of Pregnancy, Reproductive Anxiety, and Control in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Wedekind’s Spring Awakening”BIO: Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez is a PhD candidate in the English Department at theUniversity of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include modern and contemporary drama, feminist theory, performance history, performance studies, archival work, and dramaturgy. She is currently working on her dissertation, which examines the influence of the birth control movement on modern drama and portrayals of women, motherhood, and pregnancy. Farrell Rodriguez earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame du Lac in 2014. She graduated with a dual degree in English and Theatre, Film, and Television and a minor in Art History. In May 2017, she earned her master’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin. She enjoys exploring Austin with her partner and her sweet but sassy dachshund, who is aptly named after the playwright Tennessee Williams.ABSTRACT: This paper examines the relationship between portrayals of pregnant - or potentially pregnant - female bodies onstage in early 20th century American productions and cultural expectations of wife and motherhood in the years preceding and immediately following the suffrage and birth control movements. By analyzing two influential works of modern drama, Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening and Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal, I will identify the influence of not yet visible pregnancies and coerced abortions on the narrative and dramatic structure of these plays. I believe Wendla’s and the unnamed Girl’s shared status as unwed young women lead to unsolicited discussions and assumptions regarding their sexuality, fertility, and potentials for motherhood regardless of their desires - or lack thereof - to have children. Both Wendla and the Girl become the objects of increasing anxiety about the changes to their changing social situations and home life which are then compounded by the surveillance of surrounding characters attempting to manage their potential pregnancies. These building social pressures amplify feelings of alienation and eventually lead to implied abortions.?The underlying threat towards these women and their reproductive agency is enacted through their permanent disappearance from the stage.I argue that the audience’s gaze is a form of control and has an influence on whether the scripted pregnancy is allowed to progress. The Young Woman of Machinal and Wendla, though less cognizant of this type of surveillance and control, become victims of societal regulations regarding the socially appropriate circumstances in which pregnancies “should” occur that strip them of their bodily agency. The highly visible nature of advanced pregnancies and the visual dynamic of performance render drama a unique and particularly suited medium for pregnancy narratives despite the overwhelming reproductive anxiety examined and ultimately prioritized in both Spring Awakening and Machinal.Given our contemporary, fraught political and social climate surrounding reproductive rights and the struggles that many women face as they attempt to maintain autonomy over their own bodies, Wedekind’s Wendla and Treadwell’s Girl serve as surprisingly timely and useful examples of the pernicious effects of surveying, evaluating, and controlling potentially pregnant bodies. Performances of narrated as opposed to actual, existing pregnancies offer unique insights into the degree to which cultural expectations or judgements around pregnancies continue to occur in life and performance today. This paper addresses performances of pregnancy and potential motherhood through the lens of feminist theatre scholarship and within the context of appropriate socio-historical contexts, performance history, and critical receptions of both texts over the course of the past century.Thomas Rushin, UT Austin“The Christianity is Coming from Inside the House: The Play of the Sacrament and the Artifice of Conversion”BIO: Thomas?Rushin?is a second year graduate student in the English Literature program at the University of Texas at Austin studying Medieval literature, race, and?as much critical theory he can get his fastidious little hands on.?ABSTRACT: In the Croxton Play of the Sacrament there is something odd about how Christianity prefigures itself in the voices of its Jewish characters. The three of them profess ardent disbelief in Christianity but find themselves referencing obscure bible verses and other Christian knowledge all before their actual conversion at the end of the play. Theoretically conversion is a performative ritual that creates something—a new member of the religious community—in the doing of it, but it is difficult to tell what is being created by the conversion at the end of this play. In addition, by staging a fictionalized version of religious conversion, the Play of the Sacrament seems to be making a commentary on conversion itself. For this paper I will argue that through its staging of religious conversion, the Play of the Sacrament reveals the inherent artifice of the practice by showcasing how the converts were Christian all along. To do this I will examine the use of the speech acts necessary for performing religious conversion, the bodies playing the parts of the converts, and the ramifications of the conversion the play presents us with.Bianca Quintanilla, UT Austin“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Author, Inventor, and Goddess”BIO: N/A ABSTRACT: Neptuno Alegórico (1680) by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican nun and public intellectual, is a theatrical work that intends to receive and praise the viceroys Don Tomas Antonio Manuel Lorenzo de la Cerda y Aragon, marquess of the Laguna and his wife María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, countess of Paredes. At first glance, Sor Juana appears to laud the viceroyalty. Sor Juana modifies the Greek myth of Neptune, highlighting his virtues and minimizing his vices, so that he corresponds with the marquess of the Laguna. Beginning with the most well-known aspects of Neptune, Sor Juana writes that he constructed the walls of Troy alongside Apollo. The nun highlights the aspects of Neptune’s character in order to signal Mexico’s City’s greatest needs, namely the recent floods that damaged the city’s infrastructure and the Metropolitan Cathedral that was yet to be completed. In addition to highlighting salient aspects of Neptune, Sor Juana minimizes the unscrupulous aspects of his character and instead moralizes him. This Neptune is, above, all wise. To explain this newfound virtue, Sor Juana modifies his lineage; his mother is Isis, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom and inventor of letters. The rhetorical feats that Sor Juana undertake serve to honor the viceroyalty ultimately veil praises for none other than the author herself, demonstrating her facility ancient knowledge and contemporaries. However, Sor Juana does not stop at merely showing her erudition; I argue that she demonstrates the limits of Spanish power. Sor Juana compares centaurs, creatures typically associated with Neptune, to the conquistadors. Neptune thus also has an American connection. As the son of Isis and ruler of the seas, Sor Juana’s Neptune the supersedes the power of the Spanish conquerors because his power extends under the sea as well. In addition to signaling the limits of the Spanish crown, I argue that Sor Juana replaces the Holy Trinity with a divine trio based on wisdom, installing herself as the goddess. As other critics have noted, the absence of the Christian God is notable in a text replete with references to the gods of antiquity. Sor Juana strategically populates this absence with divinities of her own making. Neptuno corresponds with the viceroy don Tomás, Anfitrite with his wife countess Maria. The third element uniting these is Sor Juana, author and constructor of these new myths. To explore the implications of such a provocative rhetorical move, I will first situate Sor Juana as a polemical figure within the Catholic church. Second, I will place her within the field of the new world baroque, which broadly explores how American writers who seek to disrupt the hegemony of Spanish empire by inserting alien symbols within an established empirical framework. While Sor Juana does not seek to completely undermine Spanish power, she does so strategically to elevate herself as a writer and inventor of myths. Friday, February 282:30 pm – 4:15 pmPanel 5: Gender, Performativity, Performance (SAC 3.116)Moderator: Dr. Lynn WilkinsonRazieh Araghi, University of Michigan“Betty Friedan in Iran, Revisited: Rethinking Global Sisterhood.”?Nawaf Almutairi, Louisiana State University"Heidegger’s Authentic Self and Muslim Men’s Performativity in the U.S. Post-9/11"Roda Osman, UT Austin“Somali culture and female circumcision: A Distinct Perspective.”Presenter Bios and AbstractsRazieh Araghi, University of Michigan“Betty Friedan in Iran, Revisited: Rethinking Global Sisterhood.”?BIO: Razieh Araghi is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. She?holds a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Tabriz, Iran?and a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature form Texas State University. The tile of her master’s thesis is “Unveiling the Garden: Unpacking the Public and the Personal Roles of?both Fictional and Real-Life Iranian Women during the Pahlavi Era (1921-1979)” that was?awarded with distinction. Her research interest lies primarily in the area of transnational?feminism, particularly focusing on the second wave of feminism; the feminist movements in Middle East and American women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s. For her thesis, she?worked on narratives of Iranian women’s private lives in the public, exploring works written by?both men and women writers, while, focusing on the concept of “the personal is political” for?American women. The concluding chapter of her thesis that she hopes to study more in her PhD?is about the concept of global sisterhood— how the American feminists failed to achieve?sisterhood with their third world sisters of Iran. ABSTRACT: The veil in the discussion of Muslim world can take different meanings. Most often, the?veil has been discussed as an oppressor for the woman who wears it. Most recently, after 9/11,?the veil has projected terror to its wearer and in some contexts, it has enabled her to resist against?terror. Therefore, the veil is not an inanimate piece of clothing. It is a vibrant matter that can be?brought into life by its wearer. However, the interpretation of this “thing” is dependent on the?relations of it with the wearer and the environment. In this article, I will contextualize my?argument of the veil in 1974 in Iran around Betty Friedan’s speech and article about her visit to?Iran. The reason of this particular choice is to explore Friedan’s idea of global sisterhood through?what Jasbir Puar calls the American exceptionalism. This study investigates how the veil in this?context creates a means for American feminism to objectify Iranian women as “anonymous,” and?“deprived of agency”. Positioning the American feminism as the feminist subject par excellence,?Friedan analyzes the veil in Iran as a symbol of the American feminine mystique— her form of?American oppression becomes falsely the shared global oppression.Nawaf Almutairi, Louisiana State University"Heidegger’s Authentic Self and Muslim Men’s Performativity in the U.S. Post-9/11"BIO: Nawaf is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in English department at LSU with a minor in Comparative Literature. He received his M.A. in English in 2016 from DePaul University, and he specializes in postcolonial theory and studies. He examines, in-depth, the Islamic identity politics represented in post-9/11 postcolonial and American literature. His focus is on Muslim men’s performativity that articulate their post-9/11 collective identity.? ABSTRACT: After the 9/11 attacks took place, the world took a different trajectory in its distrust of Muslims. In the process, American Muslim men were forced to perform an act that is not of their own choice to please the US and its people. In short, Muslim men perform what Heidegger calls an inauthentic life. Authenticity is the ability to express oneself and to show oneself according to that one’s values and beliefs. Therefore, authenticity affirms individuality and the right for standing out and up against the dictations of one’s society. When the post-9/11 U.S. forces Muslim men to act according to its own values (and, therefore, against those of Muslim men), it dismantles any opportunity for Muslim men to achieve a position where they can genuinely voice their beings and concerns. So, when Muslim men are not capable of expressing themselves because they perform undesired performance, they are inauthentic and demasculinized. This paper argues that Muslim men live the life of “falling.” This falling mode of existence or demasculinization hinder Muslim men from obtaining the possibilities that their true selves offer. Consequently, how do Muslim men navigate the post-9/11 reality that renders them inauthentic? This paper demonstrates the ways through which Muslim men experience the post-9/11 reality and in what ways Muslim men respond. It argues that Muslim men cannot navigate the post-9/11 US because of two reasons. First, their inauthentic performance leaves no space for their authentic selves to arise and thus empower them to navigate their surroundings. In other words, they are isolated and blind. Secondly, the media and the US society impose certain characteristics on Muslim men and demand specific outcomes from Muslim men. This imposition and demand marginalize and demasculinize Muslim men. This paper concludes that in order to understand Muslim men’s situation and their performance, one must dismantle the demasculinization process that Muslim men undergo.?Roda Osman, UT Austin“Somali culture and female circumcision: A Distinct Perspective.”BIO: Roda Osman?is a Somali native, born in Nairobi, Kenya. Fluent in English and Somali, she currently studies at the University of Texas-Austin as a first year Black Studies major in the African AND african Diaspora Department.??Roda’s primary interests are social injustice activism and racial tension. She is also passionate about writing fiction, intersectional feminism, and holistic healing.?ABSTRACT: N/ASaturday, February 2910:30 am – 12:15 pmPanel 6: Performing Latinx Subjectivities (SAC 3.116)Moderator: Dr. César SalgadoCathy Preciado, UT Austin “Undocumenting Superman: The Acceptable Face and ‘Performance’ of an Undocumented Immigrant in the US” Maribel Bello, UT Austin“Performing Migration: The ordinary Life of Undocumented Mexican Immigrants”Javier Rivera, UT Austin“Performing Whiteness on YouTube: Microcelebrity Practices and the Ambivalent Affordances of Genetic Ancestry Tests”Presenter Bios and AbstractsCathy Preciado, UT Austin “Undocumenting Superman: The Acceptable Face and ‘Performance’ of an Undocumented Immigrant in the US” BIO: Cathy Preciado is a third-year undergraduate English major at the University of Texas at Austin. A daughter of immigrants, Cathy is invested in leveraging her education to amplify the needs of her community.? Her?research interests include pop culture studies,?immigration and race, as well as comic book studies. After completing her bachelor’s degree, Cathy intends to pursue a Ph.D. in cultural studies.ABSTRACT: In September 2017, the Trump administration made the shocking decision to rescind DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that offered temporary relief from deportation to eligible immigrant youth who came to the United States when they were children. That same week, Action Comics No. 987 published a scalding scene featuring Superman facing off with a disgruntled ex-employee and white supremacist who intended to kill the undocumented workers he believes took his job. Unsurprisingly, this issue was met with intense criticism from fans and political mediums alike. Superman after all, is an iconic American figure and many turned against him, accusing him of being a “propaganda tool for the defenders of illegal aliens.” (Fox News, 2017)In this paper I take the current discourse surrounding Superman and argue that Superman is both a culturally iconic figure and a truly polarizing one. Superman and his alter-ego, Clark Kent, are conventionally imagined as symbols of American heroism and traditional American values. However, what scholars, fans, and readers still overlook is that our caped crusader is undocumented. He is literally an “illegal alien,” brought to Earth as a baby and adopted by an American couple. He is also canonically a refugee, the sole survivor of a coup that destroyed his planet. Even though Superman himself could qualify for DACA, he is not profiled or read that way, because he assimilates well into the dominant culture.?By looking at Superman, an icon that transcends comic history, I intend to reimagine what it means to be a fan of Superman and to deconstruct what it means to be an undocumented immigrant in both the media and in the real world. Drawing on the similarities between the canonical Superman and the imagined undocumented immigrant. By closely examining topics such as religious symbolism, assimilation, power supremacy, cultural relevancy, and historical data, I intend to reiterate the value we place in idealized cultural figures and use this knowledge to highlight how the undocumented community both embodies heroism and deconstructs the negative stereotypes placed on them by the same medium that lauds after a fictional undocumented immigrant –?the daily “performance” of an undocumented individual is common.Maribel Bello, UT Austin“Performing Migration: The ordinary Life of Undocumented Mexican Immigrants”BIO: Maribel Bello is the daughter of two Mexican migrants. She received a bachelor?s degree in Communication Sciences at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, specializing in ethnographic field work. Tired of the dynamics and work schedules, she applied to complete a Master's degree in Social Intervention at the University of Buenos Aires where she was trained as a multidisciplinary actress. She is currently a candidate for a Master's Degree in Latin American Studies at LLILAS, and her research focuses on The Quotidian Life of Mexicans Undocumented Man in Austin, Texas.ABSTRACT: ?As part of a forced migration process between Mexico and the United States, I consider cross-border and the possible deportation of migrants under a framework of illegality as the greatest exponent of violence and the vulnerability of human rights. This process might invisibilize other forms of structural violence and suffering that people experience once they have settled in the United States as undocumented immigrants. In that spirit, I observe and analyze the performance of the ordinary life of Mexican undocumented people which becomes the opportunity to diagnose how different dynamics of power operate under a supposed American sovereignty and immigration policy. My proposal for this panel is a drama/narrative performance reading about a specific act framed in the ordinary everyday life of a migrant living under an undocumented status in Austin, TX.Javier Rivera, UT Austin“Performing Whiteness on YouTube: Microcelebrity Practices and the Ambivalent Affordances of Genetic Ancestry Tests”BIO: Javier?Rivera?is a PhD student in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include new media studies; online communities and networked publics; race, gender, and sexuality in online space; Internet cultures. His current research project examines the non-white men who participate in online communities of networked misogyny.ABSTRACT: On August 11th and 12th, 2017, the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (re)introduced the mainstream media to factions of white supremacist neo-fascism. The demonstrators gathered to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, but it quickly grew to encompass a larger white nationalist political agenda. Participants ranged from the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke to Richard Spencer, who founded the emergent “alt-right” movement in 2010. On the first night of the rally, the fascist demonstrators marched around the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia chanting protest slogans that unequivocally stated their ideological beliefs. On the second day, one neo-Nazi demonstrator ran his car into a crowd, killing anti-fascist protestor Heather Heyer in the process. After the days of protests, counter-protestors began to circulate images of the white nationalist demonstrators on social media to expose them to any employment or institutional ties they might have. This doxing of such protestors was framed as a way to bring about some sort of potential consequence for engaging in violent white-nationalist demonstrations.One of these protestors was then eighteen-year-old Nicholas J. Fuentes. Fuentes had his image circulated online and due to his digital presence, it did not take long for him to be identified. Fuentes hosts an online talk show and has garnered an audience sizeable-enough that it has been recently attributed to in-fighting between far-right groups. Fuentes’s political ideology adheres closely to white supremacist and nationalist rhetoric – despite the variegated terms he and others like him employ to describe their racial politics. However, Fuentes has never shied away from his ethnic heritage and has often pointed to his white European mother and Mexican father to market himself as being 91% white. Inhabiting a digital terrain and ideological space where emphasis on racial purity is seen as normative led one of his audience members to pay for a 23andme genetic ancestry DNA test to see “how white” Nick Fuentes actually is. Fuentes took this audience member up on this offer and displayed the results on his YouTube channel where he streams content daily. This paper aims to contextualize the phenomenon of an audience-member purchasing a genetic ancestry test to prove one’s racial purity in the context of networked identity and the rhetoric of discovery and revelation associated with performing your “new” ethno-racial identity on video platforms. The frameworks of microcelebrity and performativity and play in new media environments will be used to make sense of this case study and point to what genetic ancestry tests may mean for pan-ethnic categories such as “Latinidad” moving forward. Saturday, February 2910:30 am – 12:15 pmPanel 7: Staging Violent Modernities (SAC 3.112)Moderator: Dr. Naomi LindstromIpek Sahinler, UT Austin “The Turkish Boom in Latin America: Telenovelas, Violence, and Modernity”Brice Ezell, UT Austin“The ‘Unraped’ Laugh in Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers: Revising and Performing the Archival Dotty Moore”Nikolaj Ramsdal Nielsen, Stanford University“The Body As Archive? Pia Arke’s Ethno-Aethetics and Arctic Hysteria”Oscar G. Chaidez, UT Austin “Mask, Testimony, Performance: El Sicario, Room 164 and the Formation of the Violent Subject”Presenter Bios and AbstractsIpek Sahinler, UT Austin “The Turkish Boom in Latin America: Telenovelas, Violence, and Modernity”BIO: N/AABSTRACT: El subdesarrollo es no poder mirarse en el espejo por miedo a no reflejar.—Carlos Monsiváis“Did they really rape her? Damn them! My son’s life will be messed up from now on,” shrieks Mustafa’s mother in the opening of Fatmagül’ün Su?u Ne? (?Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül?; What is Fatmagül’s Fault?), lamenting for the upcoming crime that her son is going to commit to take revenge from those who gang raped his fiancée Fatmagül. Dubbed into Spanish and Portuguese, this Turkish tv series replete with violence has been the biggest hit across Latin America over the past decade. It was viewed by more than 12 million people within a year, solely in Argentina, outscoring its closest competitors like Modern Family or The Big Bang Theory. Seven more Turkish telenovelas have followed after its success, with at least six more slated to follow. It is not a coincidence that Turkish dizis have been increasingly enjoying popular success in Latin America. Academics tried to make sense of this situation (see Y?rük & Vatikiotis; Karl?da? & Bulut; ?etin) by approaching the issue from perspectives such as the quality of the productions, Turkey’s increasing economic ties with Latin American countries or the post-Ottoman soap opera colonialism. Yet, a vital perspective still remains overlooked: violence.?This paper focuses on the “boom” of so-called telenovelas turcas (Turkish tv series or dizis) in Latin America within the last decade, mainly through an analysis of how different forms of violence operate together. Concomitantly, I close-read the most popular Turkish dizi in Latin America, Fatmagül’ün Su?u Ne?, and raise the following questions: how is gendered violence aestheticized in this telenovela turca? What are other forms of violence that perpetuate the hyperbolic yet normalized depictions of sexual violence? What are the similarities and differences between the poetics and the politics of gender-based violence in Turkey and Latin America? Drawing on the Benjaminian idea that violence and civilization are inextricable units, I argue that the success of these inherently violent telenovelas turcas in Latin America has to do with the resembling dialectics of modernity and violence within the peripheral contexts of Latin American countries and Turkey. As Laura Podalski notes, “in highlighting geographical and class divisions, telenovelas traditionally have addressed conflicts that are central to modernization and nation-building in Latin America” (2003: 151). Within this framework, I read violence as a performative set of verbal and physical actions with which the subject continuously strives to fashion themselves as “modern.”Brice Ezell, UT Austin“The ‘Unraped’ Laugh in Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers: Revising and Performing the Archival Dotty Moore”BIO: Brice Ezell is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Texas. His research centers on modern and contemporary drama in America and England, with particular emphasis on dramatic and theatrical interactions with philosophy. His dissertation,?The Theatre of Clarity: Analytic Philosophy in American and English Drama, surveys five playwrights spanning Oscar Wilde to Annie Baker, and argues for the importance of analytic philosophy to their dramatic work. His research is forthcoming in?Modern Drama?and?The Eugene O'Neill Review. A professional music and film critic, his popular culture writing can be found at?PopMatters, and he has also published at?Consequence of Sound?and?Glide Magazine.?ABSTRACT: In 1986 Faber published a new edition of Tom Stoppard’s philosophical comedy Jumpers, following changes made to the text for a 1984 Aldwych Theatre production in London. Stoppard introduces the new edition, which follows a 1972 first edition, by describing the changes made to the text as ‘mostly small but too numerous to specify.’ While that description accurately characterizes the majority of the textual changes, a key comic scene involving the character Dotty Moore, the wife of the main character George Moore, was significantly revised. The first edition of Jumpers features a scene in which Dotty possibly becomes the victim of sexual assault; the 1986 version of that same scene finds Dotty consensually engaged in a game of charades with a white police officer in blackface. This major revision, combined with several smaller updates to the 1986 edition, puts Dotty in an entirely new light, and ultimately strips out some of the moral complexity of the 1972 Jumpers.?By comparing both published editions of Jumpers, in addition to drawing on the extensive archive of the play’s drafts at the Stoppard archive in the Harry Ransom Center, this paper argues that Stoppard’s revisions of Dotty reduce the nuance of her character and turn her largely into a device that highlights her husband’s addle-mindedness. But in turning to the archive to deepen the character of Dotty, scholars and stage performers can revivify what some may dismiss as a one-dimensional role. An ideal performance of Dotty, this paper claims, will be based on the fragmentary and complex archive of her character, rather than the published play-text alone.Nikolaj Ramsdal Nielsen, Stanford University“The Body As Archive? Pia Arke’s Ethno-Aethetics and Arctic Hysteria”BIO: Nikolaj Ramsdal Nielsen?is a PhD student at Stanford University. He studies Denmark’s historical and ongoing colonial presences in the North Atlantic, especially the political formalism of Pia Arke. His other research interests include contemporary US women’s writing, trauma studies, queer studies, and the geopolitics of literary-theoretical legitimacy.ABSTRACT: My paper centers on the a figure whose hyphetenated identities perform the in-betweenness that she would dramatize and theorize: the Danish-Greenlandic (mixed-race European-Inuit) theorist- performer Pia Arke. Specifically, I propose to use Arke’s manifesto Ethno-Aesthetics (1995) to unlock her video installation “Arctic Hysteria” (1996) and consider its relations to archivalism, the female Inuit body, and sexual violence in the North Atlantic colonial context.Ethno-Aesthetics offers a framework for North Atlantic decolonial struggle grounded in formalist practices of interpretation and resistance. Arke attempts “to bring the museological framework into the exhibition,” to “study them studying us” as a strategy through which Inuit artists might focalize their colonizers rather than producing art that invites and gratifies the ethnographic gaze. Documenting how Danish and North European art historians have created the very notion of Greenlandic art as “more Greenlandic than artistic” that they cite as proof of the nation’s artistic backwardness, Arke implores her peers to focalize the intellectual violence that these academics commit when they purport to diagnose the “essences” of Inuit and North Atlantic art and artists.“Arctic Hysteria” gives diachronic power to Arke’s re-focalization project by engaging with the ethnographic photographs of Robert Peary. A year after submitting Ethno-Aesthetics as her thesis for a master’s degree in art history, Arke visited the US National Archive to study Peary’s papers and encountered a series of photographs that showed Peary and his fellow polar explorers raping an Inuit woman on the pretense of curing her of “Arctic hysteria,” or piblokto. The photograph of this “corrective rape” forms the basis for “Arctic Hysteria,” a six-minute video installation in the Nuuk Art Museum’s permanent collection. Opening in a bird’s-eye view of a large-scale print of a photograph from the Peary papers showing the woman after the assault, the work sees Arke, naked, crawl into view from stage right, tear a long gash in the print reproduction of the image, and manually shred the image for the duration of the piece, never making eye contact with the camera but thrashing in the growing heap of crumbled-up paper with a vigor that evokes the Inuit woman’s supposed piblokto. Arke then exits stage-right, and the video loops.I suggest that “Arctic Hysteria” makes good on Arke’s earlier call to refocalize Inuit and North Atlantic art on the enduring colonial presence. Arke literally brings the museological framework into the exhibition: The camera forms a perfect frame around the large-scale reproduction of the Peary photograph, while shredding it reveals the materiality and contingency of the photograph, thus gesturing to possible decolonial futures. Arke confronts documentation of an historic rape with rage, but even as her shredding articulates real Inuit grievances with Peary and the colonial project he represents, she mocks the pseudo-medical foundations of European colonial overreach by playing the part of a piblokto-afflicted Inuit woman, then breaking character to reveal the condition as a mere fabulation. Arke’s art is radical in its hopefulness, gratifying in its indictment of historic violence, and overdue for a more generous intellectual reappraisal. Oscar G. Chaidez, UT Austin “Mask, Testimony, Performance: El Sicario, Room 164 and the Formation of the Violent Subject”BIO: I am an immigrant from Mexico.?The first person in my family to attend college, I graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a double major in English and Psychology and a minor in French.??I’m interested in the border not just as a geopolitical space, a Western concept from its foundations shaped by racist and xenophobic forces, but as a constituent of identity in the global age—what Gloria Anzaldúa famously coined as “border identity."?I would also like to study the presence of graphic violence in contemporary literature and culture.ABSTRACT: Current theories on subject formation link subjectivity to obedience and the performance of guilt. Formulated with a European-American capitalist nation in mind, however, I question their applicability in third world violent spaces, such as the narco-state in Latin America. Gianfranco Rosi’s 2010 documentary El Sicario, Room 164 constitutes the testimony of a sicario who for more than twenty years worked for a Mexican cartel in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. Using a performative lens, I analyze the film as a sociological document in order to formulate a theory that begins to explain the formation of the violent subject required of the narco-state to reproduce itself. By analyzing the sicario’s testimony as a performance of his violent subjectivity, I suggest, we are able to discern different factors that were crucial to his formation as a sicario, including poverty, toxic gender norms, and precisely, an absence of guilt. Saturday, February 2910:30 am – 12:15 pmPanel 8: Play Jam (SAC 3.116)I.B. Hopkins, UT AustinPaul W. Kruse, UT Austin Renae Jarrett UT AustinDan Caffrey, UT AustinNicholas Kaidoo, UT Austin Presenter Bios and AbstractsABSTRACT: Playwrights Paul W. Kruse, Renae Jarrett, Dan Caffrey, and Nicholas Kaidoo share their latest work in a series of short readings. Pick up a script and play a part, or take a seat in our makeshift audience! I.B. Hopkins, UT AustinBIO: I.B. Hopkins?is an M.F.A. in Playwriting candidate from Gainesville, Georgia. He graduated in 2015 from the University of Georgia Honors Program, majoring in English and Theatre Studies. He has authored dozens of plays and musicals (along with composer Harry N. Haines), notably?South of Someplace?(2013), made possible by Young Playwrights, Inc.;?Jimmy! A Musical Fable with Almost No Historical Basis?(2014), through the National Theatre for Student Artists and a Miller Fellowship; and?Let Rise?(2015) anthologized in Applause Book's Best New American Short Plays. Hopkins was recognized as a Mid-America Theater Conference Emerging Scholar (2016) and was a 2016-17 Fulbright Grant recipient in Creative Writing for international research in Haudenosaunee First Nations community in rural Ontario.?Paul W. Kruse, UT AustinBIO: Paul William Kruse?is an M.F.A. in Playwriting candidate at the Michener Center for Writers studying playwriting and screenwriting. A native of Western Wisconsin, Kruse is a founding member and the resident playwright of Hatch Arts Collective () in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kruse's work flows from his queer identity, Catholic roots?and ever-evolving experience of family. He creates stories in the context of community. His plays include?Boundary Layer, Chickens in the Yard,?Driftless?and?Walldogs. Kruse's?plays have been produced by the Adjusted Realists (NYC), Hatch Arts Collective (Pittsburgh, PA), Quantum Theatre (Pittsburgh, PA), Actors Theatre of Louisville?and Pittsburgh Playwright Theatre Company. Kruse's video/film work includes?Kairos Dirt and the Errant Vacuum,?Memory Keep(h)er,?Jasmine+Paul,?Diq,?The Year I Broke My Voice,?Parallel,?Hold?and?Cello Lessons. His work has shown at the Memphis Film Festival, CURRENT SESSIONS Volume VI, Issue II: Movement Currency (NYC), Midwest Independent Film Festival (Chicago, IL), The Outlet Dance Project (Hamilton, NJ), Filmmakers Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA), CNKY Scene Film Festival (Cincinnati, OH), TranScreen Amsterdam, Bangalore Queer Film Festival, The Block Theatre (Chicago, IL)?and Cannes Film Festival (France).Renae Jarrett UT AustinBIO: Renae Jarrett recently received her BFA in Dramatic Writing at New York University. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin.Dan Caffrey, UT AustinBIO: Dan Caffrey?is a?M.F.A. in Playwriting candidate at The University of Texas at Austin. He has been both a Finalist and Semi-Finalist at the O'Neill, a Resident Artist at Tofte Lake Center?and an M.F.A. Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. His work has been published by Smith & Kraus. He's also written for a variety of pop-culture sites, including Consequence of Sound, The A.V. Club, Pitchfork and Vox. He co-hosts The Losers' Club: A Stephen King Podcast and Halloweenies: A Horror Franchise podcast, in addition to recording music with Maxwell J Shults under the name Methodist Hospital. Their debut album, Giants, was named one of the best albums of 2018 by Dean of American Rock Critics, Robert Christgau. As a playwright, his work heavily draws from his interest in pop culture, from riffing on classic literature such as "Lord of the Flies" to putting his love of horror movies at the forefront of his stories. Simply put, Caffrey loves seeing monsters onstage—whether it be an actual supernatural entity or the darkness that resides within human beings. He's specifically fascinated by how these forces can move characters to rethink their choices and reshape their lives. UT productions of his include?Matawan?(directed by Lane Stanley as part of the 2018/2019 season) and?Sow and Suckling, which will be a part of UTNT?(UT New Theatre) in the spring of 2020.Nicholas Kaidoo, UT Austin BIO: N/ASaturday, February 292:00 pm – 3:45 pmPanel 9: Practice/Production (SAC 1.106)Moderator: TBAMichael A. Mignanelli, UT Austin “A Retrospective of UT Ancient Drama.”?Sayed Meysam Ghaseminejad, Independent Scholar/Artist “How Quantum Physics Can Make You a Creative Writer”?Nigel O’Hearn, UT Austin “Transcending Hysteria: Psychological Crisis and Mimetic Tradition in Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea”Presenter Bios and AbstractsMichael A. Mignanelli, UT Austin “A Retrospective of UT Ancient Drama.”?BIO: Michael Mignanelli is a PhD student in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. For the past four years, he has served as director of UT Ancient Drama, a performance group that seeks to explore and remedy problematic elements of ancient dramas through performance techniques. His dissertation focuses on Aristophanes' use of Athenian law in his comedies. Lastly, Michael has recently been appointed the Resident Instructor at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, Italy, where he will teach for academic year 2020-2021.??ABSTRACT: For four years UT Ancient Drama has produced performances of ancient tragedies and comedies that for a variety of reasons have been labeled “problem plays” by critics and scholars. As director of the organization, I have spent the last four years challenging our group of student actors to embrace the problematic elements of each play. This paper will discuss a number of obstacles in the performance of ancient drama including staging, translation, performability, and textual issues. Further, I will discuss how UT Ancient Drama handled these issues and provide footage from these performances. Lastly, I will conclude by discussing our upcoming production of Plautus’ Amphitruo and how we intend to take on the new challenges associated with this play.?The paper begins with a discussion of our 2017 performance of Seneca’s Phaedra. The goal of this production was to show that not only was Seneca’s Phaedra performable, but that a clinical approach, one that seeks to avoid theoretical conventions of drama, casts doubt upon the traditional categorization of this play as a tragedy. This performance avoided any emendation of the text and emphasized the play’s dark comic features. By highlighting the potentially humorous attributes of this play, the performance suggested a reinterpretation of the scenes, dialogues, and other features of Senecan drama that have long perplexed audiences and scholars.?I will then discuss our 2018 performance of Aristophanes’ Peace in which we sought to address issues of censorship, art, and a commitment to preserving timeless texts. The works of Aristophanes, both controversial in his own time and today, have received moralizing treatment from translators over the past century. Even worse, an aversion to performing his works on the modern stage without emendation has been exacerbated by our own political climate. In an attempt to depict the highly controversial and often obscene language of this influential playwright, we created an original translation of his Peace.?Next, our 2019 performance of Euripides’ Orestes sought to resolve a number of issues that required both updated translations and inventive staging techniques. This play has often been read as an utter failure or a Euripidean innovation. The disjointed nature of Orestes’ rhetoric, the sudden contrast of the deus ex machina, and the outrageous plot of the matricides have all contributed to this divide. In response, many modern performances of the play have mended these inconsistencies in order to create a more unified performance. However, our production chose a different path, it leaned into these peculiarities by questioning genre and considering a broader definition for tragedy.?Lastly, the paper will conclude with a discussion of the upcoming 2020 performance of Plautus’ Amphitruo, which raises a number of new challenges. For example, the play is a self-professed “tragicomedy” and has a large lacuna in the latter part of the text. Here, I will discuss how we intend to handle these issues in our upcoming production.Sayed Meysam Ghaseminejad, Independent Scholar/Artist “How Quantum Physics Can Make You a Creative Writer”?BIO: Master’s degree in “Drama Directing” from “Faculty of Art and Architecture of Azad University” Tehran (2015). B.A in “Drama Literature” from “Sooreh University of Art” (2006) Tehran - Iran.?Actor, Writer, and Director since 2000. Writer of Radio plays, TV scripts, and Stage plays. Member of Iranian Playwrights Association. Theater and movie critic. Scholar. Interested in performing arts, drama, science; music and research.I’ve studied french (A2) and german (A2), in addition to english (C1).?Currently I’m researching on creative writing and dramatic performances based on patterns and rules of nature (especially in quantum physics).ABSTRACT: Universe and the nature have patterns and structures that many of us are still unfamiliar with. Quantum physics, deals with the behavior of matter at the atomic and subatomic level, while Newtonian physics are more familiar to us as we experience it in everyday life.?By studying Quantum structure and laws, we’re able to identify and create new ideas to progress theater (whether in playwriting, or performance. On stage, or off-stage). To this end, we examine some quantum rules and try to adapt them to the important elements of drama.The Multiple Laws of Quantum Physics: superposition and observer effect, Quantum entanglement and teleportation, uncertainty, world of probabilities. And Drama Elements (Aristotelian perspective): Plot, Character, Dialogue, Theme (thought), spectacle, and song (music).Theme (thought): Themes to understand the world with quantum rules.The plot and story: The story is the raw material of the drama, and the story itself is made up of various elements. To be creative, the rules governing our story are derived from quantum laws. In fact, we apply the rules of the atomic and subatomic world to our daily lives. With the use of quantum in the story, it’s not necessary to have beginning, middle, and ending in the structure. Also events lose their causal relationship! The same can be done in the plot (although at first it may destroy narrative logic, it recreates it based on quantum logic).Character: If quantum rules over characters and their lives, they won't behave like ordinary people, but by quantum logic. Suppose two characters, at a distance far from each other, teleport information without knowing each other at all. In other words, they act completely opposite to each other, or fall in love with each other. We call it Separation between identical poles, and Connection between uneven poles (Friendship between two opposite characters).On the other hand, Characters as observers, are able to create their own world by their will. Characters that live their own lives in multiverse, with brains which able to compute a large set of probabilities in a moment, thus predicting everything to happen and have ability to change it. If the quantum rules, the basis of the characters will be broken. Characters can be immortal, so may they just transform in shapes. They live and act differently, and operate differently from the known nature and limitations imposed on humanity.Dialogue: Suppose that words also behave like electrons in an atom, then we will reach a point where all words are chosen at random, as the dadaists did to define the name of their movement. But we can also consider our sentence as the nucleus of an atom, and the electrons as various words that can surround our sentence.Nigel O’Hearn, UT Austin “Transcending Hysteria: Psychological Crisis and Mimetic Tradition in Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea”BIO: Nigel?O’Hearn is a first year English PhD student studying drama and rhetoric; his research interrogates the received institutional forms that theater artists rely on and considers what socio-political implications may inhere unbeknownst in those forms. From 2009-2012, he was Artistic Director and resident playwright of Austin’s Palindrome Theatre. His adaptation of Ibsen’s?Hedda Gabler?played at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival and was subsequently a finalist for inclusion in the 2012 International Ibsen Festival at the National Theatre of Norway.?ABSTRACT: A conference paper talk infused with theatrical performance, this presentation weaves together scholarly explication of the stale realist staging tradition that Anglophone audiences recognize as a byword for Ibsen with live performance of revitalized scenes from his ill-regarded play,?The Lady from the Sea. During the talk, the play’s controversial climactic scene will be staged two ways: first, in the traditional realism of the American stage (following a Victorian English text); second, in a radical re-staging that makes overt the poetic possibilities and larger social implications core to Ibsen’s original text (following a new, original translation). The academic reading will be situated intertextually with the actor’s performance throughout.?The choice to focus on?The Lady from the Sea?and its climatic scene––instead of better-known Ibsen works like?A Doll’s House?or?Hedda Gabler––rests in the near-consensus critical dismissal of the play because of this scene. Compared to more familiar Ibsen masterpieces, all of which end with the social or (more often) literal suicide of their heroine,?The Lady from the Sea’s Ellida ends the play alive, choosing to return to society and her marriage with Dr. Wangle, seemingly happy with the prospect of domesticity and step-motherhood. This presentation resists the long tradition of reading Ellida’s choice of life as a flimsy conversion to bourgeois domesticity, as a hysteric curing, or even as a choice between two modes of patriarchal actualization (either Dr. Wangle or the Stranger who has come to take Ellida back to the sea). On the contrary, this presentation attempts to unearth the social conditions that underlie Ellida’s crisis of identity, the seismic renegotiation of those social conditions that rests at the heart of this climactic scene, and the poetic dimensions the original Norwegian uses to convey this renegotiation, which have been effaced under the Anglophone realist dramatic tradition.Saturday, February 292:00 pm – 3:45 pmPanel 10: Practice-Based Methodologies: Four Short Performances (SAC 3.112)Moderator: Alexis RileyJessica Pe?a Torres, UT Austin México (expropriated)Jeffery Gan, UT Austintempo doeloeMolly Roy, UT Austin*One True False Move*: Performing Normal in PublicErica Saucedo, UT Austinspirit-fleshPresenter Bios and AbstractsABSTRACT: In these four short performances, presenters engage practice-as-research methodologies to explore performance-making as a strategy for both conducting academic research and sharing the findings of that research to diverse audiences. Jessica Pe?a Torres, UT Austin México (expropriated)BIO: Jessica L. Pe?a Torres?graduated?summa cum laude?from The University of Texas—Pan American?(The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)?with a B.A. in Dance, B.A. in Theatre?and?a minor in Spanish. At UTPA, Pe?a Torres performed with the Latino Theatre Initiatives, the UTPA Dance Ensemble and the UTPA Ballet Folklórico, with which she received a?Dance Magazine?Best Performance Award at the 2014 American College Dance Association festival at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.????After graduating, she moved to Washington, D.C.?where she interned for the marketing and communications department of the Shakespeare Theatre Company. After her internship, Pe?a Torres worked as production manager and dancer of the Maru Montero Dance Company, a nonprofit organization with the mission of promoting Hispanic arts and culture in the United States through dance.????In Mexico City, Pe?a Torres worked as manager and teaching artist for Academia de Danza Condesa, a dance academy with a focus on the formation and development of youth through a classical and contemporary dance-based program. She continued her performing career as a dancer of the Ballet Folklórico Nacional de México de Silvia Lozano and toured internationally.?Pe?a Torres is currently a student of the M.A. in the Performance as Public Practice program?at The University of Texas at Austin?where she is studying?Mexican folk dance, or ballet folklórico, through a social, political?and cultural lens.?Jeffery Gan, UT Austintempo doeloeBIO: Jeffrey Gan?is a Ph.D. student in the Performance as Public Practice program. A native of Washington D.C., he holds a?B.A.?in international relations and a?B.A.?in theatre from American University. While he was an undergraduate student, he also studied in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Jakarta, Indonesia. Gan’s research is centered around exploring trade in performance and the performance of trade. He is particularly interested in American pop musicals in international production, the trans-Pacific proliferation of cultural commodities, free trade agreements, national consciousness projects in South East Asia and decentering Westerness.Gan has worked as a cultural consultant and dramaturg around the Washington, D.C.?area, collaborating with Blind Pug Arts Collective, WSC/Avant Bard, the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the Embassy of Slovakia. He completed a casting and literary management apprenticeship at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and has subsequently worked at both Arena Stage and the Folger Shakespeare Library.Molly Roy, UT Austin*One True False Move*: Performing Normal in PublicBIO: Molly Roy?is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Performance as Public Practice program. Her research is situated at the intersections of dance, surveillance?and information studies. Her interests include critical surveillance artwork, the performance and choreography of surveillance, data-derived choreography?and dance as an information technology. She holds an M.S. in Information Studies from The University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Liberal Arts?with specializations in dance and education?from Prescott College.?Roy has experience as an academic instruction librarian and was a 2017 recipient of the Harold W. Billings Library Staff Honors award for her work in teaching and learning services at the Perry-Casta?eda Library. She has also worked as a teaching artist for Johnson/Long Dance Company, as a stage manager for Forklift Danceworks and as a high school special education teacher. Roy is a practicing artist and choreographer who performed widely in Austin, New York and Arizona?working most recently with the Ellen Bartel Dance Collective. She is currently developing a project that explores the re-embodiment of our data doubles.?Erica Saucedo, UT Austinspirit-fleshBIO: Erica Saucedo?is a?M.F.A. in Dance candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Erica’s work focuses on the encompassing honesty of emotion while crafting uncommon environments filled with surprise and magic. Sacred storytelling is a statement of intent to recognize all of her creative practices as moments of prayer in the name of creating connection: to the self, to the community?and, ultimately, the divine. Highly motivated by mainstream pop music and concerning herself with cliché, Saucedo prioritizes genuine emotion over the rational implications of systems of ‘seriousness’ in order to provide audience members a vantage point from the powers and systems that be. Saucedo is a participant in the Latino Artist Access Program at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center and the co-producer of Geografía, a performance platform that celebrates the diverse work of LatinX dance artists in Texas. Saucedo is the Co-Artistic Director of vis-à-vis, alongside partner Kaitlyn Bishop and a collaborator with the physical theatre troupe Frank Wo/Men Collective. Choreographic commissions for vis-à-vis include 92Y Street Festival, Danspace Project, Triskelion Arts, Austin Dance Festival?and the Actors Fund Center. Erica has worked in extensive collaboration with Angela’s Pulse, Johnnie Cruise Mercer/The RED project?and Indah Walsh Dance Company. In addition to her work in dance performance, Saucedo acted as project manager for Building a Better Fishtrap / from the river's mouth (New York Live Arts, 2018), a mile and half installation along the bank of the Bronx River, and worked as a community engagement facilitator for Gibney Dance in New York City. Saucedo received her B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. Saucedo is an ARCOS Dance Artist Development Award grantee.Saturday, February 292:00 pm – 3:45 pmPanel 11: Emerging Scholars (SAC 3.116)Moderator: Dr. Snehal ShingaviTara L. Hazel, UT Austin “Performing Nepantla”Linda Kuo, University of Maryland “Performance, fantasy, or narrative: LGBTQ+ Asian American identity through Kpop media and fandom“Katrina Bolman, Houston Baptist University“Euripides’ Medea: The Unsexed Woman in Ancient Athens” Presenter Bios and AbstractsTara L. Hazel, UT Austin “Performing Nepantla”BIO: Tara Hazel is a third-year undergraduate student studying Spanish and Linguistics at UT Austin. Her research interests include hispanic linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and marginalized identities. She is a research assistant for UT Austin’s LLAMA Lab, which investigates the cognitive effects of language brokering in Spanish-English bilinguals. ABSTRACT: Living nepantla is to exist at the nexus of the binario; feminine and/or masculine, European and/or Indigenous, Anglo- and/or Hispano- parlante, buga y/o gay. Those who live in nepantla straddle the boundaries between communities, identities, and languages. Perhaps no one provides a better introduction to these ideas than/que la escritora chicana, Gloria Anzaldúa, who wrote frequently about her experiences living in nepantla. In Anzaldúa’s work, nepantla engenders feelings of in-betweenness, lack of belonging, and change: feelings which are commonly expressed by members of marginalized groups, including bilinguals, people of color, and sexual minorities. Linguistic expression of membership in these communities is frequently performed through code-switching, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and gendered language. Because feelings similar to those expressed by Anzaldúa frequently arise in these linguistic communities, we will examine Anzaldúa’s nepantla through an?analysis of gender, sexuality, and race as they pertain to language identity. Through examining Anzaldúa’s experiences in nepantla, we seek to understand the importance of linguistic identity and its expression. While Anzaldúa’s construction of nepantla evolved throughout her work, she consistently framed nepantla as the state of being “... Caught between cultures and simultaneously being insiders, outsiders, and other-siders.” Through analyzing Anzaldúa’s work we examine the performance of identity in literature through a sociolinguistic perspective.?As we speak about language and identity, we are obligated to consider the origens of the concept we examine. Nepantla is the in-between state, “that uncertain territory one crosses when moving from one place to another… the one spot on earth which contains all other places within it”. When we speak of nepantla, we pay tribute to the Nahua people and apply nepantla to sociolinguistic theories.?Linda Kuo, University of Maryland “Performance, fantasy, or narrative: LGBTQ+ Asian American identity through Kpop media and fandom“BIO: Linda is a senior undergraduate student in Public Health Science and American Studies at the University of Maryland. With a background in Asian American community organizing, she is interested in research surrounding queer fandom, participatory media, and transformative works. See more of Linda’s work and connect with her at .?ABSTRACT: The absence of positive representations of LGBTQ+ Asian Americans in Western media?upholds stereotypes and feelings of invisibility that contribute to harmful psychological?outcomes. LGBTQ+ Asian Americans experience unique, intersecting forms of oppression, and?due to the limited research on this underserved population, it is important to understand their?lived experiences and the factors that enhance and endanger their wellbeing. Studying LGBTQ+?Asian Americans using Kpop (Korean popular music) media offers a new and timely way to?understand this population due to its position at the intersection of queer and Asian American?identities. Kpop, like Asian Americans, occupies a liminal space of hybridity between Asian ethnic and Americanized values that could disclose critical ways Asian Americans navigate and identify?themselves. Kpop functions as a unique representation for Asian Americans because it can?portray Asian identity in ways beyond the stereotypes that arise from the marginalized?experiences of Asians in the United States. Additionally, Kpop is a unique source of Asian?performance that destabilizes Western gender and sexual norms: Kpop idols reflect Korean and?Asian cultural acceptance of closeness between people of the same gender, and male idols are?celebrated for their effeminate or androgynous characteristics, and not despite of them. Although?the authenticity of LGBTQ+ representation in Kpop remains questionable, this study reveals how?engaging in Kpop provides openings for LGBTQ+ Asian Americans to explore unique desires?and identities as they process and reconstruct this media in a transformative way.?This study qualitatively explored how 16 LGBTQ+ Asian Americans identify with Kpop?media (songs, performances, music videos) and participate in fan practices. Using grounded?theory methodology, results indicate that Kpop functions as sources of representation and social?connection. Participants shared how they engage in Kpop communities through student?organizations and social media, and are involved in consuming, creating, and performing works?of fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, cosplay, song covers, and choreography covers. Findings?illustrate how LGBTQ+ Asian Americans leverage Kpop fan labor to create narratives that can?mitigate the harmful effects of marginalization. Stories expressed through the semistructured?interviews reveal how fan narratives support materializing and legitimizing fantasies, creating?queer content, and exploring desires and imaginations that are otherwise inaccessible through?western media. Engaging in fan labor provides a space for LGBTQ+ Asian Americans to?encounter queer stories and normalize these narratives while exploring new possibilities through?participatory worldbuilding and creative expression.?Developments of fandom culture in marginalized communities remain stigmatized and?largely hidden online. Stories revealed in this study highlight intersectional manifestations of?identity in life experiences that often lack academic attention. Consistent with literature locating?fan labor as performance and shared cultural production, fan interactions with Kpop revitalize?support for creative fan activities and storytelling as protective mechanisms effective against?harmful representations. Even though more research is needed on fandoms and queer people of?color, this study reveals that engaging in Kpop fan practices involves behaviors that enhance?well-being for LGBTQ+ Asian Americans such as facilitating creativity, building social?relationships, validating a need of belonging, and empowering authentic expression.?Katrina Bolman, Houston Baptist University“Euripides’ Medea: The Unsexed Woman in Ancient Athens” BIO: Katrina Bolman, a recent graduate of Houston Baptist University's Honors Program and an avid Classical scholar, remains a faithful student of her Great Texts education. In her scholarly work, she enjoys examining themes and questions from the "Great Conversation" in order to understand and examine the timeless issues that humanity has struggled with for millennia. She has published work on the intersection between Classical themes and modern literature in both scholarly and not-so-scholarly journals, and she also enjoys spending time interpreting these themes visually as a visual artist and an amateur theatrical director. She is currently in between her undergraduate and graduate studies and is a prospective student of the Comparative Literature program here at UT, with a special interest in the intersection between Classical literature and the literature/history surrounding The First World War.ABSTRACT: During his famous prosecution speech Against Neaira, the orator (widely thought to be Apollodorus, though this particular speech is often attributed to Demosthenes), gives three distinct roles for women in Athenian culture:? “Mistresses [hetairae] we keep for the sake of pleasure, [women servants] for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households”. Wives are, by far, the most important of these three roles, and the most talked about in Athenian law; these other two categories seem to merely exist for the purpose of categorizing the non-citizen and slave women living throughout the city. According to the orator, these circles ought not to intersect, and when they do manage to graze each other, as they do in the person of Neaira (an active hetaira, wife, and mother, as well as an alien woman who married an Athenian citizen) Athenian lawyers and juries become very uncomfortable.?This discomfort with the intersection and overlap between these roles in Athenian society seems to be the very tool used by Euripides in his tragedy, Medea. While this play was written over 100 years before the trial of Neaira, three years before the show’s debut on the Athenian stage in 431 BCE, another hetaira named Aspasia was making Athenians as uncomfortable as they had ever been. Aspasia, as the infamous courtesan of Pericles, lived outside of the traditional domestic sphere usually held by Athenian women: “Aspasia could ignore--even rupture-- the traditional enclosure of the female”. Euripides’ Medea performs much the same function throughout the play. We may, perhaps, read her ascent in her golden chariot as a triumph of the unquenchable spirit of the feminine rebelling against a misogynistic culture: escaping to the realm of the divine where she can find her ultimate satisfaction outside of these restraining ideas of what the feminine “should be”. On the other hand, we may also take her ending as a warning to those who choose to dabble with the hetairae: she does flee to Athens, after all.?In this paper, I will examine the role the hetairae in classical Athens, and how Euripides solves--or, perhaps, chooses to ignore-- this problem. I will do this by exploring his own categories for women through Medea’s own internal struggle, as well as through the political lens of women’s citizenship in Periclean Athens at the time, and how this would affect the role of the hetairae in the city.Saturday, February 294:00 pm – 5:30 pmPanel 12: Applied Improvisation: Two Workshops (SAC 1.106)Please note this panel contains a participatory component. As always, participation is contingent on your consent. Observation is welcome. We will take a brief break between workshops.Andrew Coolidge, UT Austin “Performance, Process, and Perception: The Intersection of Improvisational Theater and Communication Theory”Agnese Cebere, University of Oregon“Performing the Indexical: Between Language and Movement” Presenter Bios and AbstractsAndrew Coolidge, UT Austin “Performance, Process, and Perception: The Intersection of Improvisational Theater and Communication Theory”BIO: Andrew has been an improviser since 2005. He has performed and facilitated workshops all across the country, from California to Pennsylvania, Texas to Alaska, including a stint performing on Norwegian cruise lines as part of the renowned comedy institution, The Second City. He is currently a graduate student at UT Austin in interpersonal communication. His research focuses on humor and on the ways in which identities are co-created within social interaction.ABSTRACT: This interactive workshop examines the crossroads between improvisational theater and communication theory, between onstage performance and offstage social interaction. Participants will apply theories from the field of interpersonal communication to the practice of improvisational scene work and, alternately, will employ theories and exercises from the arena of improvisation to the study of everyday social interaction. Attendees will participate in exercises designed to focus their awareness on the wealth of information available in the first few moments of an interaction. Communication theories will provide a conceptual framework while exercises adapted from improvisational theater will allow for a first-hand, embodied experience of the concepts in action. No previous experience in performance or previous knowledge of communication studies is required.Agnese Cebere, University of Oregon“Performing the Indexical: Between Language and Movement” BIO: Agnese Cebere is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in the media of video, performance, and photography. Originally from Latvia, she grew up in Sweden, and earned her BA in Intermedia Art at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland. She graduated with an MA in Media Studies from The New School in New York in 2018, where her research focused on embodiment and technology as they converge in screendance. She is now based in Eugene, Oregon, where she is Program Director at Eugene Contemporary Art, and MFA Candidate in Art at the University of Oregon. ABSTRACT: This workshop/participatory performance tangles the linguistic and the corporeal, challenging participants to find the words to describe improvised movement in real time. The movement is itself prompted by ideas of the indexical, framing and pointing-to; moving between somatic perception and visual image-making while responding to the site of the performance.?The performance involves a chain of command, with one person improvising, another mimicking that movement, a third describing verbally the actions taken by the improviser in first person, a fourth describing it in second person, a fifth in third person, and others observing. It functions as a workshop in that we will switch between roles, manufacturing different points of view through language, framing the action to create layers of meaning. Before we reach this point however, we will do a series of simple exercises that will prepare us for the task at hand.?Through this work, we will explore distance and proximity using language and our bodies, both dwelling in each other and imag(in)ing a space of action. The objective of this workshop/performance is to experience the ways in which language positions us in space, within our own bodies, and in relation to each other. Perhaps we might discover feedback at play between speaking and doing, and so create an indeterminate space between description and instruction, mirroring the mechanics of improvisational practice itself in its moving and being- moved-by, thinking and being-thought, saying and being-said.?This workshop/performance does not require any technology, just a space that can be cleared of obstacles to provide space for the participants to move around.?Saturday, February 294:00 pm – 5:30 pmPanel 13: Roundtable: Shadow Casts: Performance, Hybridity, andThe Rocky Horror Picture Show (SAC 3.112)Moderator: Dr. Thomas J. GarzaMembers of the O'Brien’s OrchestraPresenter Bios and AbstractsABSTRACT: Over the past forty-five years since The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s original release, so-called “shadow casts” have become a common fixture in cities and towns throughout the United States. These troupes of actors perform in the same spaces where the film is playing, bringing the events on-screen to life onstage. Shadow cast performances blur the boundaries between screen and stage, performers and audience, sound and silence, subculture and pop culture. This round table will feature several members of Austin’s own shadow cast, O’Brien’s Orchestra, in conversation regarding their own experiences as participants in this unique kind of production.Members of the O'Brien’s OrchestraBIO: N/A ................
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