Spring 2019 Events

The Queer Drama of Black Life

A panel discussion to celebrate the publication of Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (NYU Press 2018) by Tavia Nyong’o, former Professor of Performance Studies at NYU, currently Professor of American Studies at Yale. The author will read briefly at the event, and a panel of scholars and artists will respond. All welcome and books will be available for the event.

MOVING MAD, QUEER, AND CRIP: ARTFUL RESEARCH, and LIVING

Lindsay Eales and Danielle Peers dance a quartet that embraces critical disability and Mad theory, spoken word, dance, and film, offering critical reflections on the generative possibilities of disability and madness in the arts. Followed by a discussion with Hentyle Yapp (Art & Public Policy) and André Lepecki (Performance Studies).

Legacies of Aesthetic Concealment: Conversations with Baseera Khan

Artist Baseera Khan will show an acoustic performance of her work Braidrage, as well as Prayer Rugs, and collages, she will then talk about what happens next. In addition to her presentation, Baseera will be in conversation with B.A. Candidates Manion Khun and Akeem Muhammad to speak on the implications, effects, and processes of her work.

Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious

A book launch & roundtable with co-editors Patricia Gherovici and Chris Christian and other contributors to the volume.

The Plant of Dreaming

Elisa Biagini lives in Florence, Italy. She has published 7 poetry collections. Her most recent book “Da una crepa”, The Plant of Dreaming, appeared in 2017. Her 2018 selection “The guest in the wood”, Chelsea Editions, received the 2014 Best Translated Book Award. She curates community poetry installations with words and images. Her poems have been translated into multiple languages. She teaches Writing at NYU-Florence.

MY BUTCH CAREER: A Memoir By Esther Newton

Anthropologist Esther Newton reads from her new memoir followed by a discussion with Ann Pellegrini (Professor, Performance Studies). Moderated by Faye Ginsburg (Professor, Anthropology).

The Calypso Craze Archive

Celebrate the publication of Shane Vogel’s Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze at this showcase of the performances that shape the book. The first cultural history of the calypso craze, Stolen Timeoffers a new framework for understanding the cycles of repetition and difference that shape race, entertainment, and mass culture during the Jim Crow era and charts new forms of diasporic exchange between the US and the Caribbean. The informal discussion will feature performances by midcentury performers Maya Angelou, Geoffrey Holder, Carmen de Lavallade, Duke Ellington, Josephine Premice, and others.

Carolee Schneemann: This Kinetic Life

Join us for a salon style conversation with André Lepecki, Barbara Browning, Malik Gaines, and Karen Finley as they remark on the life and work of the late Carolee Schneemann. Enacting a politics embedded in feminist sexuality and institutional critique, Schneemann’s expansive practice as a painter, photo/videographer, writer and performance artist continues to permeate the politics of the arts today.