Archives

Paper: “The Balcony, The Pope, and The Screens: Jean Genet’s Unsettling Perspectives on the Society of the Spectacle.”

Paper: “The Balcony, The Pope, and The Screens: Jean Genet’s Unsettling Perspectives on the Society of the Spectacle.”

On October 26, I presented the paper “The Balcony, The Pope, and The Screens: Jean Genet’s Unsettling Perspectives on the Society of the Spectacle” for the “Theatre and Society” Panel at the PAMLA Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference “Shifting Perspectives,” in Portland, OR.

Jean Genet (1910–1986) found recognition by shocking conventional French society. In this paper I analyze his three plays that more pointedly critiqued “the society of the spectacle” (Guy Debord), the degradation of authentic social connections in favor of relations between their images.

In The Balcony (1955), the brothel of the title appears as a high-scale establishment dedicated to enacting perverse scenarios by regular men who seek the thrill of absolute power. Stage manager of this “house of illusions” is Madame Irma, who surveils its 38 studios. However, because her clients’ reenactments are nothing but simulacra of power, fundamentally blunting any desire to act in the real world, the bordello acts as one of the status quo’s institutions, against which a popular revolution is brewing. In the end, the rebels fail because, even after the real Royal Palace is blown up, a confrontation of allegories is displayed from the brothel’s balcony, with Irma and her clients silently embodying the archetypes of power just destroyed and yet desired by the masses as guarantors of order. When Irma dismisses the audience in the same way as her clients, hinting at a new rebellion the next day, she implicates the voyeuristic spectators as acquiescent to the mechanisms of power through spectacle.

With The Pope (1955), Genet applies his analysis to the highest position in the Catholic Church. In this playful and irreverent short piece, a photographer has made an appointment to capture the Pontiff’s ideal image for worldwide distribution, but this highly self-conscious Pope regrets gradually shedding all his “interior density” to finally become an empty vessel reduced to a “definitive image.” Indeed, he enters in the expected “long white robe […] a tall papal miter and a cross on his chest” but does so gliding on roller skates, while his behind remains naked because never officially visible.

Finally, combining his scathing assessment of white colonialism and the discourse on power achieved through simulacra, The Screens (1961) offers a sprawling, polyphonic epic that obliquely alludes to the Algerian war of independence (1954–1962), in which both sides rely on simulacra. On the one hand, the ruthless racist colonizers count on their constructed image to dominate the territory, such as wearing a fat suit to look more imposing, while the French soldiers seem more preoccupied with looking good than having better weapons; on the other hand, the insurgents – though able to win the war – simply substitute the older with their own oppressive power structures. This similar approach becomes evident once all warring characters end up in the same metaphysical “place” after death. The only way to escape this society of the spectacle is suggested by the Nettles family, when Saïd dies but does not reappear among the dead, so he will never be fixed in a hero’s image.

Overall, Genet’s work displays a gusto for defying expectations, an eagerness to contradict the assumptions of bourgeois morality, and a constant reminder of the power and fragility of simulacra in the private and political arena.

Book: Actor-Network Dramaturgies: The Argentine of Paris

Book: Actor-Network Dramaturgies: The Argentine of Paris

After about 6 years from project through on-site research in Buenos Aires and Paris to book, I just finished checking the proofs of my monograph Actor-Network Dramaturgies: The Argentine of Paris, forthcoming in August with Palgrave Macmillan in the Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History series. What a journey!
In the meantime, I was fortunate to receive two great endorsements:
 
1. from Maria Delgado, professor and director of research at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK:
A rich, engaging and beautifully written exploration of stagings produced by Argentines who chose to settle in Paris in the 1960s. Boselli’s monograph is not simply a repositioning of iconic directors such as Jorge Lavelli, Jérôme Savary, and Alfredo Rodríguez Arias, but also an exploration of a wider group – including artist and playwright Copi, costume designer Juan Stoppani, set designer Roberto Platé, and performers Facundo Bo, Marucha Bo, and Marilú Marini — as a means of exploring the different networks through which they collaborated. In tracing the ventures these artists generated, this important monograph asks pertinent questions about nationhood, exile, intercultural collaborations, non-human agents, global and local exchange, and the political, social and cultural agents that shaped their navigation of intersecting cultural spaces.

2. from Leo Cabranes-Grant, Professor of Theatre at the University of California, Santa Barbara:

Spanning two hemispheres and two mega-cities, Stefano Boselli’s pioneering book manages to map, with great precision and inclusivity, the complex exchanges that make TransAtlantic cultures possible and sustainable. Adapting and refining the foundational principles of actor-network analysis, Boselli captures the creative and political transactions connecting Argentinian playwrights, directors, and performers living in France to funding resources, human and non-human agencies, policies, fashion, or set designers. What’s truly significant about Boselli’s research is that he manages to keep all these elements not only together —which is already quite a feat—but also in perpetual motion (as they are experienced and assembled). His meticulously detailed presentation of both the macro and micro factors involved, and his vision of intercultural relations as a flowing process that is constantly redressing its own forms posits the possibility of a richer methodological template breaching the gaps between sociology, performance studies, affect studies, and theater historiography. Last but not least, his book proposes a dynamic approach to diaspora studies, showing that geography is defined by our collaborations as much as by the lands we leave behind or the new lands we inhabit.

 
Paper: “Catastrophe for Whom?: Posthuman Ecologies in Bontempelli’s Hedge to the North-West.”

Paper: “Catastrophe for Whom?: Posthuman Ecologies in Bontempelli’s Hedge to the North-West.”

For the 2022 ASTR Conference, on November 5, I chaired a virtual Working Session with my colleague and co-editor Sarah Lucie, on the same topic of our forthcoming collection Revealing Posthuman Encounters in Performance.
I also presented the paper “Catastrophe for Whom?: Posthuman Ecologies in Bontempelli’s Hedge to the North-West,” in which I sought to point out more numerous non-human actors in the play than Bontempelli’s magical realism already envisions.

Article: “‘And May the Best… Thing Win!’: Posthuman Actor–Networks in RuPaul’s Drag Race”

Article: “‘And May the Best… Thing Win!’: Posthuman Actor–Networks in RuPaul’s Drag Race”

An article I worked on last year was finally published! At some point during the pandemic I began watching more TV than usual and ended up writing on collaborations between human and non-human actors in RuPaul’s Drag Race. Can Drag Performance be seen as posthuman? I’d have never imagined I’d watch the whole 14 seasons of the program (and partly twice) 😂. I couldn’t have pulled it off at the same level without the encouragement and invaluable suggestions of the “Posthuman Drag” special issue’s awesome editors Kai Prins and Florian Zitzelsberger, in addition to the two anonymous but passionate peer reviewers. The article can be found here: https://intellectdiscover.com/…/10.1386/qsmpc_00085_1
CFP: Revealing Posthuman Encounters in Performance

CFP: Revealing Posthuman Encounters in Performance

Edited by Stefano Boselli and Sarah Lucie 

Abstract proposals due by February 28, 2022

Revealing Posthuman Encounters in Performance is an intervention to reframe current theatre studies methodologies to attend to the broader spectrum of non-human actors and the crucial ways they exert agency in the theatre event. 

Posthumanist discourse has exploded during the last decade, inviting a turn toward a post-anthropocentric, post-dualist approach to theatre studies. However, the common definition of theatre as performance of human actors for a human audience still privileges anthropocentrism.

With this collection of essays for performance studies scholars and practitioners, we aim to engage posthumanist thought to expand readers’ awareness, refocus their perspective, and reveal a broad spectrum of non-human actors that often remain unseen even as they interact with human performers. Performance studies have indeed included props, objects, and technology in their purview, but these analyses tend toward a historical or semiotic/symbolic approach that consequently neglects the vibrant non-human agencies involved at several levels of scale.

Our project will take stock of the methodological shifts necessary in theatre and performance to highlight non-human agency across historical and contemporary examples. Beyond close readings of contemporary performances, we encourage contributions that investigate historical examples from the ancient world through the present, and reflect on methodological processes in order to apply this posthuman focus across the field moving forward. We seek a deep engagement with contemporary theories, as well as a dramaturgical understanding of theatre and performance that goes beyond the staged performance to connect with the larger rhizomatic networks of actors involved.

Contributors are asked to consider the following questions:

  • What does an attention to human–non-human networks ask of theatre theory or developing methodologies of theatre studies? What expanded analytical tools do scholars and practitioners need?
  • How do we measure or account for the agency of non-human actors? What traces have we lost sight of and how do we refocus our gaze?
  • If the “human” is itself a constructed notion, what did the developing definition of humanhood exclude and how did it interfere with a comprehensive archive and the way we study historical performance practices?
  • What counts as a non-human actor? What about supernatural beings, ETs, ghosts, dreams, ideologies, viruses, substances, institutions, and so forth?
  • What might this expanded vision mean for theatre production and performance in practice?
  • How can an attention to the human–non-human collaborations and alliances in theatre aid in understanding other social/ecological concerns?

Possible themes include:

Theories: Posthumanism, Actor-Network Theory, Assemblage Theory, New Materialism, Feminist New Materialism, Object Oriented Ontology, Flat Ontologies, Ecology, Dramaturgy

Actors/Agents: objects, performing objects/puppets, cyborgs, robots, machines, technology, computer programs/algorithms, media/social media, natural phenomena/weather, hyperobjects, microbes and viruses, assemblages, ensembles, institutions, capital/money, historical events/politics, religion, ideology, audiences, affect.

The editors welcome abstracts for review from both established and emerging scholars. Interested contributors should send a brief bio (150 word max.) and abstract proposal (300 word max.) by February 28, 2022. Early submissions are welcome.

We expect essays will be between 6,000-9,000 words but length may vary in consultation and collaboration with the editors.

Estimated timeline:

Abstracts due February 28, 2022 Authors notified by April 30, 2022 Final proposal submitted to Routledge May 30, 2022 Potential contract: August 2022 Chapters due to Editors Jan 30, 2023 Chapters returned for redrafting May 30, 2023 Final chapters due June 30, 2023 Manuscript to Routledge July 30, 2023

In production: September 2023

Publication: Spring 2024

All inquiries and submissions should be sent

to co-editors Stefano Boselli and Sarah Lucie

at posthumanperformance@gmail.com

About the Editors

Stefano Boselli is a New York-based theatre scholar and stage director who enjoys combining theory with practice. He is currently completing a monograph on how the study of theatre history can be significantly enriched through the lens of actor-network and assemblage theories, focusing on a group of Argentine artists who moved to France to achieve fame and dominated the Parisian scene between the 1980s and 90s. He teaches theatre courses at Marymount Manhattan College, York College, and other colleges in and around NYC.

Sarah Lucie, PhD, is a theatre scholar and dramaturg. Her research approaches contemporary performance and digital art through new materialism, ecocritical theory, and posthumanism. She currently teaches in the theatre and dance departments at Marymount Manhattan College and Drew University.