Areas of Research

1. PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS
addresses the methodological and theoretical tools offered by the emerging interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies to address issues of political and social change in Latin America.
Hemispheric Course: Spring 2000
Annual Seminar: Brazil 2000

2. CONQUEST AND COLONIALISM
examines the role of performance in the conquest of the Americas. From the pre-colombian era until the establishment of European colonial authority, we observe a radical transformation in the concept of spectacle and its relation to the political and social cosmos, as one imperial order comes to impose itself on another during a period of 50 years. Although the course followed a shared program and bibliography, at NYU it focused mostly on Mexico, at UNI-RIO it focused on Brazil, and at la Pontificia Universidad Católica, it focused on Perú.
Hemispheric Course: Fall 1999
Annual Seminar: Brazil 2000

3. MEMORY, ATROCITY AND RESISTANCE
focuses on performance modes as a means of transmitting cultural memory and as a strategy for political intervention.
Hemispheric Course: Fall 2000
Annual Seminar: Mexico 2001

4. GLOBALIZATION, MIGRATION, AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE
examined performances of national identity, citizenship, language, and cultural heritage as they cross boundaries in the Americas through migration, exile, and other socially-motivated issues. How do dramas of nation-ness and identity tie into other performances - economic, global, and cultural - of which they are also a part? The NYU/Mexico course offering focused specifically on the cultural formation of 'Mexican', 'Mexican-American', and 'Chicana/o' through the examination of public space in both Mexico and the U.S. The courses offered in Brazil and Perú explore similar issues of migration, displacement, and continuity in the context of Afro- or indigenous populations.
Hemispheric Course: Fall 2001
Annual Seminar: Perú 2002

5. SPECTACLES OF RELIGIOSITIES
Focusing on the congruence of performance, religion, media and mediation participants explored how media and performance transmit, modify or challenge notions of belief and religious faith.
Annual Seminar: United States 2003