Performance Studies Commons^™

Book Review, Communication Wisdom: Insights On Communication Principles, Messages, And Relationships, Jack E. Rogers

National Forensic Journal

Edited by Philip M. Backlund, Steven A. Beebe, Ronald D. Gordan, and Sherwyn P. Morreale, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group: New York and London, 2025, ISBN: 978-1-032-87681-8 (hardback); ISBN: 978-1-032-87676-4 (paperback); ISBN: 978-1-003-53389-4 (eBook).

Aligning Vision: Issues Facing Disability Accommodation In The Forensics Space, Ryan Corcoran

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Drawing The Circle: Framing Forensics As Educational Looping, Ben Walker

National Forensic Journal

In light of shrinking numbers on teams and at tournaments, Klosa (2008) called for more sustainable practices in forensics. Now with funding in higher education dwindling (Fenner, 2018), forensics needs to adapt to the changing landscape (Walker & Walker, 2024). This essay outlines how forensic coaches can align our co-curricular activity with a trending educational philosophy: looping.

Kindness As A Critical Lens: Ethical Considerations In Rhetorical Critique, A Adams, Emily Sauter

National Forensic Journal

In 2016 Brianna Kirkham stepped onto the stage to give a performance titled, “if ‘This Is Not A Rape’ isn’t a rape, then what is it?” based on the performance art of Emma Sulkowicz’s “This Is Not A Rape” video. Of over 100 entrants, Brianna Kirkham was named national champion for her performance in the final round. Kirkham instructs the viewer to “watch kindly” when viewing Sulkowicz’s video. However, this phrase is never defined. Instead, Kirkham interrogates herself and the audience. Are we, as participants within a competitive activity, watching kindly? Did she? By utilizing a performance that clearly alludes …

Introduction: Accessibility In Collegiate Forensics, E Meier, Justin Rudnick

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

The Strengths Of Malleability, Annie Ward

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Looking Forensic Inaccessibility In The Eye: My Experiences As A Low Vision Competitor, E Meier

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Band-Aids And Bulldozers: Reimagining, Rebuilding, And Taking Responsibility For The Foundational Inaccessibility Of College Speech, Julie Walker

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Nfa Journal

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Cultivating Success: Exploring Mentorship In Collegiate Speech And Debate For Student Retention And Growth, Vanessa Fowler

National Forensic Journal

While many are drawn to forensics because of the allure of advocacy through public speaking and moving performances, there also exists the human element of forensics that continues to keep people involved and build life lasting relationships when the competition years are finished. Mentorship plays a distinctive role in the forensics community in the way coaches work to build their teams and for the students to have guides along their journeys whether they continue within the activity after their competitor years or not. This thesis delves into the pivotal role of mentorship within the collegiate speech and debate community, examining …

Dancing In Circles: Bon Dance As Performance Of The Past, Travis Robb Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project traces the contours of the Japanese folk dance tradition of Bon Dance in Hawaiʻi through the nuances of public scholarship, diaspora, and racial capitalism by producing an original play which aims to perform the knowledge and praxis which the performance ritual puts forward. Treating Bon Dance as muse, the original play examines the necessity of turning to the past in order to disrupt a future made inevitable by oppressive systems; a fiction that comments on and critiques the predictive and generative technologies that have embedded themselves into society at large. Through intertwining conversations that explore prophecy and …

"The Climate Emotion Wheel" - An Exercise To Address Climate Anxiety Inspired By Boal's Forum Theatre, Talin Abadian

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

The goal of this exercise is to provide students a space to articulate these complex emotions, engage in collaborative problem-solving with their peers, reclaim a sense of agency and empowerment by exploring meaningful action collectively while also highlighting individual responsibilities towards the environment. This exercise can be used effectively to demonstrate the power of Boal’s Forum Theatre as a tool for collaborative problem-solving and communal rehearsing of solutions to real-world challenges.

Exploring The Seams Of Performance: Performance Studies & Theater Praxis, Sarah Kozinn

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

The exercise aims to use a taxonomy of performance, as theorized by Richard Schechner in his essay “Drama, Script, Theatre, and Performance,” to think analytically about what performance is. (Part of the goal is to “make strange” what students, most often, think they already know by giving then tools to better define and identify the spectrum of what is termed “performance.”)  Students will articulate the porously bounded areas of drama, script, theatre, and performance, teasing apart and developing a definition of what defines theatre as theatre in relation to how they define performance.  Through this, students will develop an analytic …

Performing Disobedience: Critical Spatial Heritage, Counter-Memory, And The Rewriting Of Medellín’S Public Space, Laura Balán

Interiority

This article examines the radical street performance practice of Bernardo Ángel Saldarriaga in Medellín, Colombia, as a site of political and epistemological transformation. Through ethnographic engagement with Saldarriaga—an ascetic artist who stages trance-based interventions in public space—the study analyses how his performances disrupt dominant narratives of history, identity, and citizenship. Drawing on political ontology, decolonial thought, and critical heritage studies, the article argues that Saldarriaga's work functions as a hybrid forum for negotiating plural knowledges and social imaginaries. His refusal of institutional funding, his embodied critique of state power, and his use of trance and possession rituals generate both affective …

“Anything Can Have Life”: An Interview With Everett Quinton About Charles Ludlam’S Ridiculous Puppetry, Jungmin Song, John Bell, Everett Quinton

Ballard Institute Publications

This Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry conversation, via Zoom, with

Everett Quinton, Dr. John Bell, and Dr. Jungmin Song was recorded March 21,

2021, and edited by Tom Tuke and John Bell. Everett Quinton (1952-2023) was an

actor, director, and—after the death of his partner Charles Ludlam (1943-1987)—

the leader of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, the landmark ensemble which

helped define queer theater in the late 20th century. While mostly known for his

acting, playwriting, and directing, Charles Ludlam was also an active puppeteer

and ventriloquist. Many of his puppets are now part of the Ballard Institute and

Museum …

"Then Daddy Began A Story": Storytelling In Tolkien’S Home And Our Own, Josh Renaud

Journal of Tolkien Research

"Then Daddy began a story, and this is what he said." That's how J.R.R. Tolkien began the first manuscript version of "Farmer Giles of Ham," one of a few moments of fatherly storytelling to be found in his fiction. Tolkien is remembered today as a great author and artist, but in his home he was a loving parent who regaled his children with tales — a "story-telling presence," as his daughter Priscilla Tolkien put. In this presentation, I reflect on Tolkien as a "daddy" and oral storyteller, drawing on examples from Tolkien's life and writing. I also consider what storytelling …

Chi Meta-Project Ecosystem Overview - Spring 2026, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This paper offers a high-level account of the Center for Holistic Integration’s (CHI) meta-project ecosystem as visualized in the included system map. CHI provides an organizational structure framed around persistent meta-projects that support and extend individual initiatives across curriculum, scholarly and applied research, infrastructure, artistic production, AI development, cultural inquiry, and external partnerships. Rather than presenting the map as a static inventory of projects, the paper examines how its core domains function as living systems through which knowledge, tools, documentation, participants, and collaborations can accumulate over time. It also considers how CHI-mediated connectivity, institutional integration, and external funding allow the …

Drawing As Continuance: What Insists On Being Heard, Darlene St. Georges

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This article extends She-Hero through an inquiry into drawing as a creation-centred practice of continuance. Five drawings are engaged as aesthetic encounters through which relational and perceptual shifts become perceptible, allowing inner authority to emerge as a cultivated capacity to remain responsive to what is unfolding. Drawing is approached as a site of metramorphic reconfiguration where imagination, memory, and embodied sensing participate in the decolonizing of perceptual habits and the restoration of relational ways of knowing.

Showing It! Art Matters. But Why? How?, Holly Edwards

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This article addresses the agency of art with reference to an exhibition entitled “The Nature of Spirit”.  That show appeared in the local public library, resonating strongly with notions of “heartwork”.  My first Artizein publication was written in response to 9/11, and this one maintains comparable urgency, seeking solace in art precisely when the world seems to be sliding into lunacy. The prose explores the powers of art in traumatizing times with words, while the images offer the reader insight and support energetically.

Text/Ures, Kathy Mantas

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

By entwining the voices of other co-creators, text and images, I share a brief site-specific photo-reverie of my life-long allure to trees—in this instance, by attending to the trees near my home. This offering is rooted in peripatetic aesthetic practices that embrace a slower creative approach and more spellbinding ways of living, learning and knowing. In essence, this is an invitation to have an artful encounter with text/ures of trees.