My book project about transcontinental interweavings of performative practices focuses on cross dressing and ethnic drag in carnival, popular theater and mass culture. Against the backdrop of our debates on forms of cultural appropriation it contributes to an intersectional take on masculinity studies. Its starting point is creolized carnival in port cities, which have been shaped by the afterlife of slavery and segregation. How do masking practices in this context relate to theoretical approaches in Gender Studies, which stress the subversive potential of drag? And how could we re-vision the potentialities and boundaries of performative subversion if we broaden our cultural studies horizon from a global perspective? Analyzing the history of European popular theater and globalized mass culture through the lens of creolized carnival my project reflects on how to provincialize and historicize contemporary theorizations of queering and appropriation. It is based on field work conducted in the context of my Heisenberg project Demarcations and Performative Transpositions funded by the German Research Society.
Events within the framework of Dirty Dragging:
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Nora Chipaumire (New York) Jay Pather (Cape Town) Karin Harrasser (Linz) meLê yamomo (Amsterdam) Aurélie Godet (Paris) Nadia Davids (Cape Town) Elaine Frantz Parsons (Kent State) Eric Lott (New York) Raz Weiner (London) Katrin Köppert (Bochum) Nanna Heidenreich (Vienna) Julia Ostwald (Vienna) |
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Jay Pather (Cape Town) Mamela Nyamza (Cape Town) |