“Artaud’s Daughters in New Media Culture”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents a talk by Theatre & Dance PhD student Heather Barfield.

Monday, November 3, 12-1pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Austin theater company, Rubber Repertory, is pushing the limits of theater and live performance into the 21st century.  In their latest production, The Casket of Passing Fancy, they ardently integrate interactivity without apology.  “You must choose,” demands the Duchess who sits at the helm of the parlor.  You must take your chances and honor the infinite possibilities of presence and liveness; you decide whether you want a tame or taboo offer; you initiate the transaction by raising your hand.   You realize there is a precipice to pass behind those curtains: what will happen to you is a mystery that pumps adrenaline through your excited body.  You must shed some fear about human-to-human contact, stranger-to-stranger relations, in order to fully engage the senses and take pleasure (or pain) in the performance made just for you.  You are thrust from complacent and passive spectatorship.

This production astutely captures the essence of Antonin Artaud’s manifestos on “cruel theater” practices.  Also, because the performances are individual and personal, they are performed only once, aligning with Peggy Phelan’s arguments about the ephemeral nature of performance.   Taboos are temporarily suspended for the sake of pleasure and fetishistic notions of experiencing something “new.”  This theater offers a radical and unique twist on notions of representation and mimesis in live performance.

Heather Barfield is a PhD Candidate in Theater and Dance with an emphasis on Performance as Public Practice.  She has been an active player in Austin theater for over 15 years.

“Trespassers Will be Recruited: Recruitment & Reluctance in the Indian Call Center Economy”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents a talk by Folklore & Public Culture PhD student Mathangi Krishnamurty.

Monday, October 27, 12-1pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

In this paper, I detail a chapter of my dissertation dealing with recruitment processes in the Indian call center industry. Based on two years of ethnographic research in the city of Pune in Western India, I investigate the variety of practices that seek to maintain the large number of workers required in this Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.

Even as revenues from the BPO industry continue to add to India’s GDP, the industry faces high levels of attrition and decreasing caches of labor populations. In this paper, I detail the various steps that potential workers have to go through before becoming a call center worker. This paper analyzes media messages, recruitment drives, interviews, orientation sessions and training agendas to trace the ways in which organizations are seeking to make efficient the process of transformation from a young student to a professional worker. I end seeking to discuss what the absurdity of these increasingly desperate processes means for the future of both outsourcing and this urban worker population.

“Making Sense of Race: America’s National Conversation”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents a talk by Anthropology professor John Hartigan.

Monday, October 20, 12-1pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

How do we recognize racial aspects of the world 
around us? Largely by drawing on media stories 
about race, even as these stories seem to grow more confusing by the day. Following the last 
year of news coverage involving race, this talk 
surveys the changing ways Americans interpret remarks or incidents as “racial.” Professor Hartigan is the author of Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit (Princeton 1999), Odd Tribes: Toward a Cultural 
Analysis of White People (Duke 2005), and forthcoming works, Race & Culture: New Challenges 
and Controversies in the 21st Century (Oxford 
2009), and Making Sense of Race: America’s National Conversation (Stanford 2009).

Join us for a talk by Radio, Television, Film Professor Lalitha Gopalan

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents a talk by Radio, Television, Film Professor Lalitha Gopalan.

Monday, October 13, 12-1pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Lalitha Gopalan is the author of Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema (2002), Bombay (2005) and 24 Frames: The Cinema of India (2008). Her research interests include national cinemas, international genre cinema, and experimental filmmaking practices. She is on the editorial board of Camera Obscura and is currently working on a book about short films.