“Why Are Transvestites Better Than Women at Making Women Beautiful in Mandalay?”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents “Pirated Transnational Broadcasting: The Consumption of Thai Television Soap Operas Among the Shan Community in Burma,” a talk by Anthropology Associate Professor Ward Keeler.

Monday, October 6, 12-1pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

“Many Burmese friends in Mandalay have told me that male to female transvestites are better at making women appear beautiful than women are. They attribute this to the dual nature of the transvestites’ gender and therefore understanding of what is attractive. In believing this of transvestites, Burmese sustain a view of them as being particularly capable of crossing boundaries: in the past, they were employed primarily as spirit mediums but now they cross the boundary between the local and the international in the matter of cosmetics and style.”

Pirated Transnational Broadcasting: The Consumption of Thai Television Soap Operas Among the Shan Community in Burma

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents “Pirated Transnational Broadcasting: The Consumption of Thai Television Soap Operas Among the Shan Community in Burma,” a talk by Anthropology PhD candidate Amporn Jirattikorn.

Monday, September 29, 12-2pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

“Pirated Transnational Broadcasting” examines the roles of transnational media in the lives of Shan community in Burma with a focus on their consumption of Thai satellite television. It analyzes how the Shan appropriation of transnational television creates a new site of identity transcending national boundaries as well as expressing an ambivalent sense of interaction with mediated modernity. It also demonstrates the role of transnational media as a catalyst for the emergence of Shan migration to Thailand.

Fall Colloquium Schedule

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies hosts an annual fall colloquium presenting research by UT students and faculty and visiting faculty. Join us Mondays from 12-1 in EPS 1.128 for new and in-progress research in cultural studies!

September 29
Amporn Jirattikorn: Pirated Transnational Broadcasting: The Consumption of Thai Television Soap Operas among the Shan Community in Burma.

October 6
Ward Keeler: Why Are Burmese Transvestites Better at Making Women Beautiful Than Women Are?

October 13
Lalitha Gopalan (Dept of Radio, TV, and Film).

October 20
John Hartigan: Making Sense of Race: America’s National Conversation.

October 27
Mathangi Krishnamurthy: Trespassers Will be Recruited: Attrition and recruitment in the Indian call center economy.

November 3
Heather Barfield: Artaud’s Daughters in New Media Culture.

November 10
Patricia Clough, (Queens College, CUNY)
“Scenes of Secrecy, Scales of Hope”

November 17
Marina Potoplyak: Modernity in Print: Publishers and Avant-Garde Literary Groups in Petersburg and Buenos Aires during the 1920s.

November 24
Afsheen Nomai: Culture Jamming: Ideological Struggle and the Possibilities for Social Change.

December 1
Dan Villarreal: Heritage Mandarin Speakers in Taipei, Taiwan.

Call for Entries

Text Practice Performance, the student-edited journal of the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Texas, is currently accepting abstracts and submissions from UT graduate students for our fall 2008 volume!

Submissions are due by March 22, 2008. Please direct all questions and submissions to tpp@www.utexas.edu.

TPP publishes performance-centered essays, book reviews, mixed genre writings, and multimedia works by University of Texas graduate students in all departments. Past themed volumes have explored nostalgic forces within globalization, flawed and slippery ideas of authenticity, and the roles of fusion in emergent culture and performance. We are currently seeking work on borderlands, war zones, values and properties, new forms of identities, public/private life, and experimental forms of writing and critique.

“‘Drinking Flower Wine’ in Taipei Hostess Clubs: Male Fantasy, National Authenticity, and Timelessness.”

The Department of Anthropology is hiring a new Assistant Professor in the Folklore and Public Culture program. The third candidate to visit the campus is Paul Festa, currently teaching anthropology in Hong Kong.

Monday, February 4, 12pm

E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Professor Festa’s talk is titled, “‘Drinking Flower Wine’ in Taipei Hostess Clubs: Male Fantasy, National Authenticity, and Timelessness.” He will speak with interested graduate students after the talk.

“Night Shifts: Moral, Economic, and Cultural Politics of Turkish Belly Dance Across the Fins-de-Siècle.”

The Department of Anthropology is hiring a new Assistant Professor in the Folklore and Public Culture program. The second candidate to visit the campus is Oyku Portuoglu-Cook.

Friday, February 1, 12pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Professor Portuoglu-Cook’s talk is titled, “Night Shifts: Moral, Economic, and Cultural Politics of Turkish Belly Dance Across the Fins-de-Siècle.” She will speak with interested graduate students after the talk.

“Card Me When I’m Dead”: Identification Papers and the Pursuit of the Good Afterlife in China”

The Department of Anthropology is hiring a new Assistant Professor in the Folklore and Public Culture program. The first candidate to visit the campus is Julie Y. Chu, currently an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Wellesley College.

Friday, January 18, 12-2pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Professor Chu’s talk is titled, “Card Me When I’m Dead”: Identification Papers and the Pursuit of the Good Afterlife in China.” She will speak with interested graduate students after the talk.

“Between Innovation and Imitation: Media, Globalization and Cultural Hybridity in India”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents “Between Innovation and Imitation: Media, Globalization and Cultural Hybridity in India,” a talk by Radio/Television/Film Professor Shanti Kumar.

Wednesday, November 28, 12-2pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Professor Kumar’s research interests include television and new media technologies, global media studies, and postcolonial theory. He is the author of Gandhi Meets Primetime: Television and the Politics of Nationalism in Postcolonial India (University of Illinois Press, 2005) and co-editor of Planet TV: A Global Television Reader (NYU Press, 2003).

“Cultural Alterity of Turkish Roma (‘Gypsies’) and Political Dis/Enfranchisement”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents “Cultural Alterity of Turkish Roma (‘Gypsies’) and Political Dis/Enfranchisement: Identity Politics, European Union, and Urban Development,” a talk by Ethnomusicology Professor Sonia Tamar Seeman.

Wednesday, November 21, 12-2pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Professor Seeman has done field research in Macedonia, Southeastern Europe and in Turkey on Rom, Turkish, and transnational musical practices. Her recent research interests explore emergent Turkish cultural expressions and ongoing configuration of ethnic and gendered identities in the wake of the European Union accession processes. Her talk draws from fieldwork conducted among Roma communities and organizations in Turkey to explore the dynamics of local, national and transnational politics, and implicates the key role of public performances of music and dance in forging political consciousness.

“Selena’s Memorial and Civic Maintenance in the Borderlands”

The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents “Selena’s Memorial and Civic Maintenance in the Borderlands,” a talk by Professor Deborah A. Paredez, Department of Theatre and Dance.

Wednesday, November 14, 12-2pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128
University of Texas at Austin

Professor Paredez’s recent work has focused on U.S. Latina/o performance and popular culture. Her articles, “Remembering Selena, Re-membering Latinidad,” (Theatre Journal, 2002) and “Becoming Selena, Becoming Latina” (Women and Migration in the US-Mexico Borderlands, Duke University Press, 2007) comprise part of her forthcoming book, Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory, that explores the afterlife of the Tejana performer, Selena Quintanilla Perez.