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Performative Ethics: Performing Refusal/Refusing to Perform

Mon, April 8th, 2019
4:15 pm
- 5:15 pm

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As part of the performative ethics series, Dr. Mengesha will address the topic of refusing racialization within artistic production. The discussion will take up the recent special issue of Women & Performance on the topic of “Performing Refusal/Refusing to Perform,” In particular, she will focus on the valences of refusal as animated in a lush video installation about Standing Rock, entitled “Dislocation Blues” by Ho-Chunk filmmaker, Sky Hopinka. More broadly, this conversation will center critical questions around race, ethics and representation: how do minoritarian artists, that is queer artists of color and indigenous artists, actively refuse a consumptive colonial gaze in their practice? What are the social and political stakes of creating artistic work that is opaque, illegible or unintelligible to most audiences? These questions will be taken up in the talk through the lens of critical indigenous studies and performance studies.

This event is part of the yearlong lecture series Performative Ethics: Embodied Representation in the Commons.

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