CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Associate Professor José Esteban Muñoz

ASSOCIATE CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Associate Professor André Lepecki

The performance studies curriculum covers a full range of performance, from theatre and dance to ritual and popular entertainment. Postmodern performance, kathakali, Broadway, festival, ballet, and capoeira are analyzed using fieldwork, interviews, performance theory, and archival research. Courses in methodology and critical theory are complemented by offerings in specialized areas. The program is both intercultural and interdisciplinary, drawing on the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Areas of inquiry include contemporary performance, dance, folk and popular performance, postcolonial theory, feminist and queer theory, and performance theory. Training leads to careers in teaching, research, theatre and performance reviewing and scholarship, writing, editing, arts administration, and management of performing arts collections.

Students may serve on the editorial staffs of TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies and Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, which are produced within the Department of Performance Studies.

New York is a world center for theatre and dance, both traditional and experimental, and home to a diversity of folk and popular performance traditions. Students take advantage of the city’s unparalleled resources for research and professional development—museums, libraries, archives, live performances of all kinds, and a network of perfor-mance professionals.

Faculty

Barbara Browning, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1989 (comparative literature), M.A. 1987 (comparative literature), B.A. 1983 (comparative literature), Yale.
Brazil and the African Diaspora; dance ethnography; race, gender, and postcoloniality.

Deborah Anne Kapchan, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1992 (folklore and folklife), Pennsylvania; M.A. 1987 (linguistics), Ohio; B.A. 1981 (English), New York.
Narrative; feminism; music; poetics and aesthetics; North Africa and the Middle East.

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Professor; University Professor. Ph.D. 1972 (folklore), Indiana; M.A. 1967 (English literature); B.A. 1966 (English literature), California (Berkeley).
Jewish social science; vernacular culture; heritage politics.

André Lepecki, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 2001 (performance studies), M.A. 1995 (performance studies), New York; B.A. 1990 (cultural anthropology), New University of Lisbon.
Dramaturgy; dance; philosophy and phenomenology.

José Esteban Muñoz, Associate Professor; Chair, Department of Performance Studies. Ph.D. 1994 (literature), Duke; B.A. 1989 (comparative literature), Sarah Lawrence College.
Latina/o studies; queer theory; critical race theory.

Tavia Nyong’o, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2003 (American studies), M.A. 2002 (American studies), Yale; B.A. 1995, Wesleyan.
Black diasporic, feminist, and queer studies; theories and histories of performance; visual culture; comparative American cultures.

Ann Pellegrini, Associate Professor, Performance Studies, Program in Religious Studies. Ph.D. 1994 (cultural studies), Harvard; B.A. 1988 (literae humaniores), Oxford; B.A. 1986 (classics), Harvard-Radcliffe College.
Queer theory; religion and sexuality; psychoanalysis and culture; religion, performance, and community-formation; cultures of childhood; feminist and queer performance; confessional culture; religion and secularism; Jewish cultural studies.

Richard Schechner, Professor; University Professor. Ph.D. 1962 (theatre), Tulane; M.A. 1958 (English), Iowa; B.A. 1956 (English), Cornell.
Comparative performance; performance theory; experimental theatre; theories of directing and acting.

Karen Shimakawa, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1995 (English literature), Washington; M.A. 1991 (English literature), Virginia; J.D. 1989, California (Hastings College of Law); B.A. 1986 (English literature), California (Berkeley).
Asian American performance/cultural studies; critical race history; transnational/diaspora studies; intercultural performance.

Anna Deavere Smith, Professor; University Professor. M.F.A. 1977 (acting), American Conservatory Theater; B.A. 1971 (English), Beaver College.
Acting and performance.

Diana Taylor, Professor, Performance Studies, Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures; Director, Hemispheric Institute on Performance and Politics. Ph.D. 1981 (comparative literature), Washington; M.A. 1974 (comparative literature), National (Mexico); Certificat d’Etudes Supérieures 1972, Université Aix-Marseille; B.A. 1971 (creative writing), University of the Americas (Mexico).
Latin American theatre and perfor-mance; theatre history; gender studies; performance and politics.

Allen Weiss, Associate Teacher, Cinema Studies, Performance Studies. Ph.D. 1989 (cinema studies), New York; Ph.D. 1980 (philosophy), SUNY (Stony Brook); B.A. 1974 (philosophy), Queens College (CUNY).
Experimental theatre, radio, and film; aesthetics; psychoanalytic theory; poststructuralism.

FACULTY EMERITUS

Brooks McNamara.

VISITING FACULTY

In an effort to vary the offerings and provide opportunitiesfor students to work with scholars and artists from other parts of the UnitedStates and abroad, the department regularly invites visiting faculty to developspecial course offerings at various times during the year, including summers.