PMA Ph.D. Alum Megan Shea ’09 has written a new book called Tragic Resistance: Feminist Agency in Performance. The book, published by Routledge in January, analyzes playwrights, directors, and performers who shatter gender norms to gain agency within the patriarchal institutions restricting them.
Shea took some time to speak with us about her work.
What was your approach in crafting this book?
I noticed that we did not have a lot of recent books in the field of performance studies that looked at a broad spectrum of feminist performance. I wanted to examine the work of a variety of artists with different identifications. While I was writing the book, two of the artists I was writing about came out as nonbinary, which helped me consider how gender categorization limits those with cis and queer gender identities. Feminist performance, I argue, disrupts the limits imposed by socially constructed notions of gender.
How did your work at PMA contribute to your thinking about resistance and performance?
When working on my dissertation, I remember telling Professor Sabine Haenni that I wanted to write about resistance in performance. She pointed out that many people in performance studies assume that they know what “resistance” means and moreover, they assume that performance is or can be resistant. That question stuck with me as I worked on the book. When I was dissertating, I addressed it a bit, but with the book, I really sought out how resistance functions in performance. What makes performance resistant? And what makes resistant performance?
What would you like readers to know about your work?
This book starts with Antigone and ends with Nicki Minaj. It’s a wild ride.
Read more about Tragic Resistance: Feminist Agency in Performance.
