On the day of July 23, 1926, a strange case passed before Judge Harry Trelawney Eve. On the surface, it seemed like a pretty straightforward matter of copyright in which one Geraldine Cummins was contesting the rights of one Frederick Bligh Bond to a work called The Chronicle of Cleophas. The thing is: Geraldine Cummins Read More
I am a dramaturg. … (what does that mean?) … In their book Dramaturgy and Performance Cathy Turner and Synne K. Behrndt explain that, “the more precise and concise one tries to be [in defining dramaturgy], the more one invites the response ‘Yes, but…’. Although dictionaries and encyclopedias offer apparently clear explanations, these are insufficient Read More
Halloween is a scary time (for those outside the dominant ideology, for those on the unfortunate side of power dynamics). I (We? No, too many variants in that we. Only common in our antagonist …and even I am only implicated indirectly) spend the days leading up to the 31st much the way my cousin taught Read More
It has been a challenge for me to imagine how I might put the concepts we’ve encountered in this class together with the project I’m working on, which is currently focused on Thomas De Quincey’s autobiographical project. I’ve found myself repeatedly linking the readings with the titular piece of technology in De Quincey’s final major Read More
The photos above are connected, not by geographical location or photographer, but rather by hashtag: #liveauthentic. A quick Google search will yield endless images tagged as such, most of them highly-curated and (ironically) inauthentic in their likenesses. The spare, wholesome, outdoorsy aesthetic seen in these photos has had an influence on numerous aspects of commodity culture Read More
Distant Reading Probe. Presenting on Oct 10th. When I tell people in North America that I research Chinese shadow puppetry, 99.5% of the time I get one of three reactions: 60% of them say, “You mean like the Jim Henson’s, the Muppets? 27.5% of them say, “You mean like Being John Malkovich?” 12% Read More