While I am not going to really outline many of the arguments presented in the book, at least not right now, I did want to share where some of these ideas have started taking me in terms of my feminist theory comps questions. The first two are the most fleshed out, the third and forth both need some more research and reading before they come into focus and the fifth just expanded as I was writing this post into something that, while I’m sure is not the final draft, is approaching something at least. All in all, I’m at least much further along that I was week ago and hope to get drafts sent to my theory area advisor

Theory Comps (Feminism) Questions

1. Material feminists often criticize Judith Butler’s conception of gender as a performative act as too discursive, and thereby limited in its use. For example Claire Colebrook suggests that Butler’s “inability to transcend the linguistic paradigm” limits how far Butler’s critique of subjectivity can be taken (68). However, as Vicki Kirby writes, Butler’s work is valuable “not so much as a doxa to be affirmed and simply followed, but as an exemplary illustration of how to read critically, yet generously.” Indeed, even as writers like Colebrook or Karan Barad criticize Butler, their concerns are often less with what Butler was doing and more with her limitations and, in their view, unwillingness to entertain the true ramifications of a performative subject. Drawing on Butler’s formulation of subjectivity and gender, even while extending it through the work of Karen Barad and Theresa de Laurentis, how might the performance of Furry identity be understood as gender performativity rather than, as often is the case in the popular press, a kind of sexuality? How does Butler’s work in particular help frame such an approach without foreclosing on the embodied, material acts of performance that are non-discursive?

2. In her article “Viscous Porosity,” Nancy Tuana argues that the very question of what is natural versus what is cultural is, in some ways, the wrong question. Using Hurricane Katrina as an example, she writes:

We cannot sift through and separate what is ‘natural’ from what is ‘human-induced,’ and the problem here is not simply epistemic. There is scientific consensus that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are raising the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. These “natural phenomena” are the result of human activities such as fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. But these activities themseves are fueled by social beliefs and structures.” (193)

She then proposes the idea of viscous porosity as a way to understand “the complex ways in which material agency is often involved in interactions, including, but not limited to, human agency” (194). Viscous porosity is Tuana’s attempt to account for “the importance of re-materializing the social as well as understanding material-agency—the human as well as the more than human” (194).

How can can such a concept be deployed by feminists in theatre and performance studies? How might viscous porosity provide insight into interactions between the social and material ontologies of a play? Specifically, could the concept of viscous porosity be used to understand specific instances of anti-feminist discourse within the materiality of theatrical performances? Drawing on Tuana’s theory, and incorporating Susan Faludi’s analysis of anti-feminist discourse in the 1980s, I examine Lapine and Sondheim’s play Into the Woods and David Mamet’s Oleanna and argue that viscous porosity can provide a way to understand the interactions between narratives, authors, peformance, audience, reception, and criticism.

1. Hamara/Halberstam/Kristeva/Spivak. Something about sexualizing the female zombie body; the zombie as fantasy of the ultimate subaltern? Fucking the abject, the monstrous. If women are seen as abject to begin with, is it just a small step from how they are fantasized alive to how they are fantasized dead? Objects of study: images from zombie walks, zombie pinup calendar, Dead Girl. Argue that there is no noun version of “fantasy” but that it is always a verb, “fantasizing” and thus depends on interaction with material and ever materializing subject/actor/being.

2. Harraway/trans-species subjectivity/butoh

3. Karen Barad writes that a “performative understanding of discursive practices challenges the representationalist belief in the power of words to represent pre-existing things. Performativity, properly construed, is notan invitation to turn everything (including material bodies) into words; on the contrary, performativity is precisely a contestation of the excessive power granted to language to determine what is real” (121). In order to construct a deeper understanding of subjectivity and its relationship to performativity and the real, Barad posits the concept of “intra-actions” and that “[r]eality is not composed of things-in-themselves or things-behind-phenomena, but of “things”-in-phenomena” (135). Further that the “world is intra-activity in its differential mattering” (135).

Using Barad’s notions of performative and intra-activity, how might the act of story-telling be understood as a material matter in Charles Mee’s Queen’s Boulevard? In what ways can Barad’s work be used to enrich feminist criticism of theatrical production?

PhD Comprehensive Examination Procedure

1. At least eight months prior to the anticipated date of the Comprehensive Examination, the student chooses a specific topic within each of three examination areas—Theoretical Discourses; Historical Discourses; Textual Discourses.

2. In consultation with the area advisor, the student prepares and submits five questions in each area. Each area advisor must approve the questions before the student sets an examination date.* Each discourse area requires approximately 7 hours of writing. Students may write their exam on each discourse area at home, over a two-day period in which they set aside seven hours for this purpose. The entire exam on the three discourse areas should be scheduled within a ten-day period. Students are strongly encouraged to schedule their examination dates near the start or finish of the fall or spring semesters. Examinations scheduled over the summer months require the special approval of the graduate faculty.

3. The student prepares each of the five questions in each of the three areas.

4. Just prior to the time of the examination each area advisor will choose three questions from among the five submitted by the student. For each of the three discourse areas, students will receive the 3 questions from the graduate secretary. The student should find a quiet place to write, choose two of the three questions to answer, and then return her/his answers to the grad secretary within 48 hours. While writing, students may consult whatever sources they wish. Students may cite specific references (and note the source parenthetically), but should avoid long quotations. The answers will take the form of a paper, which will be judged as a piece of writing as well as for the cogency and scope of the response. Papers may be written in longhand or composed on a computer.

5. After the graduate committee (made up of the area advisors) has read the papers, an oral exam is scheduled. It usually begins with a review of the candidate’s written answers, but will likely move to other questions that might have been chosen, or to any questions relevant to the candidate’s areas. The oral examination lasts about one and one half hours. Following the oral examination the candidate withdraws and waits for the examiners to come to a decision. There is no fixed or quantitative relationship between the written and oral portions of the comprehensives. A mediocre written examination might be redeemed by a good oral. Following the oral examination the candidate withdraws and waits for the examiners to come to a decision. If the candidate fails, the major advisor will talk with the candidate about the reasons for failure. Usually each examiner speaks individually to the candidate, as well. A course of study for the future is then established. Occasionally a candidate may be passed in all but one area, in which case the examiners will arrange for a re-examination in that area. If a student fails the entire exam or an individual area of it a second time, the exam may be retaken only with the approval of the Graduate Faculty.

AREA ONE: THEORETICAL DISCOURSES This area of study involves Structures, Approaches, and Genres. It is designed to cover the theoretical bases of theatre and performance study. Students choose a single conceptual construction and prepare it in detail. Theoretical discourses include:

rhetoric, theatre semiotics, Marxist theory, feminism and theatre and drama, cultural studies and performance, ritual and performance, structuralist and poststructuralist methods, cognitive and/or memory studies, genre theory and neo-Aristotelianisms, psychological, phenomenological, and response theories, theories of spatiality, and so on. Students may prepare a combination of two structures or approaches (e.g., cultural semiotics or Marxist historiography) or may propose alternatives to the above list. As part of this area, students must also propose a restricted body of material that will form the examples for the theoretical investigation. The material of study may come from written drama, from performance history, from popular culture, or from other relevant categories. It may not, however, overlap in any substantial way the material proposed for Areas Two and Three.

AREA TWO: HISTORICAL DISCOURSES A major period of theatre history is selected for in-depth investigation. Relevant topics include playhouses, audiences, performance strategies and styles (acting, directing, etc.), scenography, ―movements‖ in playwriting, dramaturgy, cultural attitudes to theatre and performance, institutions, and systems of finance. The theoretical and critical conclusions reached by major theatre scholars on these topics within the chosen period will substantially shape the student‘s investigation. Students choose one major period from the list below and propose the chief ways they wish to approach the material.

Major Periods of Theatre History

• Greek and Roman
• Medieval Europe
• Renaissance Europe
• Seventeenth Century Europe
• Eighteenth Century Europe
• Nineteenth Century Europe
• Twentieth Century (the ―modern‖ period): 1880-1945 (Europe & North America)
• Twentieth Century (the ―contemporary‖ period): 1945-present (Europe & North America)
• North American Theatre (from the beginnings to World War I)
• Japanese Theatre (period to be specified)
• Chinese Theatre (period to be specified)
• Indian Theatre (tradition to be specified)-
• African Theatre (tradition and period to be specified)
• Latin American Theatre (national traditions to be specified)
• Interculturalism (cultures/period to be specified

AREA THREE: TEXTUAL DISCOURSES The work of one major dramatist or of two related dramatists is investigated in detail. Three “texts” are relevant:

• the written drama
• the history and tradition of its theatrical
• production (including its contemporary performance) the history and tradition of its reception

Because of the orientation of the program and the research interests of the graduate faculty, the major dramatists listed are from the Western tradition. These include Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Ben Jonson, Aphra Behn, Molière, Racine, Corneille, Goethe, Schiller, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, Eugene O‘Neill, Susan Glaspell,Harold Pinter, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard, Caryl Churchill, Irene Fornes, Paula Vogel and Shakespeare (in this case, familiarity with all the plays is expected, but detailed knowledge of the criticism of only ten plays is required).

Another strategy would be to combine two related playwrights. If the candidate is interested in creating a combination he/she will need to seek the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies.

NOTE: Areas Two and Three should be substantially separated in historical period. If a student chooses the Greek and Roman period from Area Two, for example, then post- Renaissance dramatists should normally be chosen from Area Three.

So, that’s the scope of what I’m working on. My three areas are Feminism, 20th Century Avant-Garde, and Euripides. Currently I’m not quite as far along in the process as I’d hoped to be, for a combination reasons, including work on some other projects and emotional struggles that I’ve been going through this summer. Still, I’ve read several books about Euripides, most of his plays, and this week have been focusing on some feminist theory. I’ve previously done some work on the avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century, so I feel confident that I can come up with at least 2-3 questions for that part so only need to do some more reading about the avant-garde post-WWII.

The goal is to have all 15 questions written and accepted by the first week of school. So, yeah. Umm . . . I should get to work.

So there you have it, a site re-born.

I may return to this when I finish coursework and am working on comps and my dissertation because, while my time will still be filled with work, the rhythm of it will be more conducive to keeping up something like this.

If you are interested in following my personal life and the various things I find interesting (some of which may indeed be focused on academic stuff), feel free to check out Living the Liminal.

So, mayhap I’ll be seeing you here in 2012. Until then, be well and dream big.

What, really, am I doing, and why? There are days when I can answer that question and feel positive about myself. Today is not one of them. In part, it’s probably because I’m at the end of the semester and up against writing deadlines that make my life stressful and I never, ever feel positive about the papers I write at the end of the semester. Still, sometimes I do wonder.

I commitment never thoughts the dead for now I went to France and Germany, it was my finest respite ever. Western Europe countries are great repayment for tourists, as there are illusive attractions, beautiful landscapes and you can comprise believable in good time there. The prices could be slash, but pacific is quality prosperous there.

Seriously, Dada poetry or spam? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

For all of you grad students or loved ones of grad students, good luck over the next couple of weeks.

It’s a frustrating feeling. And frightening as all hell. We are talking about single digit days before I have to turn in an 8-10 page proposal for an article length article, and only a week after that, I need to have my Shakespeare paper in good shape, followed by my Formation of the America’s paper. It’s not so much that I haven’t started writing that’s the problem (although I really wanted to be in a position to begin writing this weekend), its that I am still flailing around and don’t feel like I have anything of interest or import to say in the areas I’m working in.

Have you ever come up against the end of the semester and felt utterly lost in terms of your seminar work? If so, please let me know because I’m hitting my head against a wall these days . . . and that’s not helping all that much.

On the other hand, as I care about theatre, theatre pedagogy, and how theatre departments operate within the larger field of academia, these are issues that I will always grapple with and probably now is as good a time as any to develop strategies that are respectful to my colleagues while allowing me to be as honest as possible. This is a challenge for me because bad theatre and poor teaching are among the things in this world that make me get angry and very, very riled up. Again, however, now seems as good a time as any to start learning how to handle this challenge.

Any tips?

Of course there are bad days, but this day? This day was a good day.

"Politics, Plague, and Shakespeare’s Theater: The Stuart Years" (Leeds Barroll)

Check it out here