Subversion and survival: navigations through performance and media cultures

Research Seminar Speakers: Swati Arora (Queen Mary, University of London) and Rohit K Dasgupta (University of Glasgow)

Under Cover: Insurgent Methods of Border Crossing

I draw on my forthcoming co-edited book on pluriversal conversations on transnational feminisms to assemble a few thoughts on border-crossing – disciplinary, epistemic, and linguistic. What does border-crossing in performance studies look like? The presentation offers a few insurgent methods of subterfuge and survival as we secure justice for our communities while acknowledging the colonial histories of our institutions.

Swati Arora is Lecturer in Performance and Global South Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. Her work exists at the convergence of performance and visual culture, feminist theory, Black Studies, and dramaturgies of urban space in the global South. Most recently, she published ‘Performing Refusal’ (Injury and Intimacy, MUP) and ‘A manifesto to decentre theatre and performance studies’ (STP).

Viral Assemblages & Patchworks: Cultures of Queer (Un)Belongings

This paper is based on ethnographic field work conducted in Kolkata during 2019–2021 with queer and trans people during the COVID pandemic. This paper develops a new framework of queer patchworks and discusses the various ways through which queer and trans communities are navigating survival during these non-normative times. This paper brings together patchworks of whatsapp texts, broken zoom conversations, cooking gossip and addas on the banks of river Hooghly as a nod to these new realities which are reshaping queer identities; thus, offering new ways to also acknowledge, accommodate and ‘queer’ what counts as knowledge.

Rohit K Dasgupta is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Industries at the University of Glasgow. His most recent books are COVID-19 Assemblages (Routledge, 2022) & South and East Asian Cinemas across Borders (Routledge, 2020). He is currently co-authoring a book on India’s creative industries. He is also an elected Labour & Cooperative councillor in the London Borough of Newham since 2018.

About this event.

The FTT Research Seminar Series is hosted by the University of Reading and puts research from scholars in Film, Theatre and Television into dialogue. This celebrates the exciting intersection of these fields within our department and seeks to support collaboration and conversation across Film, Theatre, and Television.

Each invited paper is 25-30 minutes long and is followed by a participatory Q&A discussion. This seminar will be held online.

Reserve your space to attend.