Colloquia Series #3

On February 11, the CDTPS will host our third colloquium of this academic year! We invite the CDTPS community and interested friends to join us in this event. Three of our current doctoral students—Alisha Grech, Evan Moritz, and Yizhou Zhang—will present their research. Professor Antje Budde will be the faculty discussant.
 
“We’re Missing the Point: Reporting on Violence Against Women and the Perpetuation of Missing White Woman Syndrome”
Alisha Grech
On September 11th, 2021, Gabrielle Petito was reported missing, taking mainstream news and social media by storm. On September 19th, 2021, Gabby’s remains were found in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. In the state of Wyoming, over seven hundred Indigenous people are missing. Their cases are unsolved. In response to the issue of MMIWG in the United States, Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear argues: “native women have been dehumanized from the very beginning.” In this presentation, the missing person’s cases of Jermain Charlo and Gabby Petito will be presented in tandem, with a discussion on scopes of care and the pervasiveness of missing white woman syndrome.
 
“Qausuittuq and Mars: Settler-Colonial Science and the Quest for Terra Nullius”
Evan Moritz
Many of the people who were forcibly relocated from Inukjuak QC to Qausuittuq/Resolute Bay NU appeared in Robert J. Flaherty’s 1922 film Nanook of the North. Today, Qausuittuq receives flights from researchers and scientists bound for their northern research outposts like the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS). I argue that FMARS—rather than rehearsing a future colonization of Mars—is already engaged in a settler colonialist project in Nunavut. I analyze Flaherty’s pseudo-documentary, how FMARS restages frontier politics, and how such politics serve a future colonization project, pushing into the “final frontier” of space.
 
“Experimenting with Docufiction Theatre: (Inter)textuality, (Meta)theatricality, and (Hyper)reality”
Yizhou Zhang
This project attempts to theorize “docufiction theatre,” a neologism that describes my practice of combining documentary theatre and literary adaptation in two plays: TTD and HoD. This research begins by examining the ontology of the real in the documentary theatre tradition. Then, I analyze docufiction theatre’s treatment of intertextuality, meta-theatricality, and hyperreality in response to today’s post-truth and virtual environments. I illustrate how docufiction theatre seeks to claim theatre as a unique place capable of addressing the paradox between the post-modern suspicion of representations of objective reality, and documentary theatre’s agenda to convey facts and politicize the real world.
 
 
Discussant: Professor Antje Budde
Facilitator: Professor Xing Fan
 
Please register in advance for this Zoom meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtdOihrD8uEtQuN713VFxBokP0QfmdgIcd
 
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.