Events Archive

Spring 2023

April 20

Presentation with Joshua Chambers-Letson (Professor of Performance Studies and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University), Tavia Nyong'o (Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, and Theater and Performance Studies at Yale University), and Tania Bruguera (Senior Lecturer in Media & Performance, Theater, Dance & Media, Affiliate of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University) on José Esteban Muñoz's The Sense of Brown

April 6

Open Symposium, moderated by Prof. Beth Blum

March 30

Presentation with Michelle Clayton, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature at Brown University, "Articulations: Scenes of the Modern"

March 9

Nora Connolly, Nora and Jim

February 16

Moloney, McCann & Moloney, Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom


Fall 2022

November 10

Edna O'Brien, Joyce's Women

October 6

Jonathan Brielle, Himself and Nora


Spring 2022 Schedule (all times are EST, all zooms links are TBD)

Wednesday, March 30, 5pm

Graduate Student Workshop

Wednesday, April 6, 5 pm 

Presentation with Ivan Ramos, Assitant Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University

Wednesday, April 13, 5 pm 

Presentation with Monica Huerta, Assitant Professor of English and American Studies at Princeton University


Fall 2021 Schedule (all times are EST, all zooms links are TBD)

Wednesday, November 3, 5:30 pm

Happy hour with wine and cheese in front of Barker Center. We will reconvene in Room 211 to discuss Seth William's piece "[They Dance]: Collaborative Authorship and Dance in Macbeth." 

Wednesday, November 17, 5 pm 

Presentation with Seth Williams, Assistant Professor of Dance, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies at Barnard College.

Wednesday, December 1, 5pm

Presentation with Celeste Day Moore, Assistant Professor of History at Hamilton College


Spring 2020 Schedule

Thursday, February 20

Graduate Student Workshop: Vijeta Saini (Northeastern), "The Merchant of the Empire: Shakespeare and the Cultural Qualia of Mobility and Memory", 5:00pm @ Barker 218

**ALL MARCH AND APRIL EVENTS POSTPONED**

Thursday, March 12 

Lawrence Switzky (U Toronto), "Eliza Doolittle, Spencer Tracy, Alan Turing, and Other Artificial Persons: Modern Drama and the Early Development of AI," 5:00pm @ Barker 218

*Professor Switzky's event will begin with an info session about Modern Drama, of which he is co-editor.*

Thursday, April 9

Andreea S. Micu (Harvard), "‘No people without houses, no houses without people’: Street Performance and Anti-Evictions Activism in Madrid," 5:00pm @ Barker 218

Thursday, April 16

Paige McGinley (Washington University in St. Louis), "On Readiness: Rehearsal and Anticipation in the Long Civil Rights Movement," 6:00pm @ Barker 218

Fall 2019 Schedule

Wednesday, October 9 

Graduate Student Workshop: Isidora Miranda (UW-Madison), "Breaking the Glass: Musical Labor and the Tagalog Zarzuela Diva Atang de la Rama" @ Barker 218, 5:00pm

Thursday, October 31

Derek Miller (Harvard), "On Broadway as Repertory" @ Barker 114, 4:30pm

Wednesday, November 13

Aniko Szucs (Yale), "Performances of Resistance in the Illiberal Democracies of the 21st Century—The Case of Hungary, Macedonia, and Brazil" @ Barker 218, 5:00pm

Spring 2019 Schedule

Wednesday, February 20

Derek Miller (Harvard), "Work in Progress on a Quantitative History of Broadway" @ Barker 133, 5:00pm

Wednesday, March 6

Jewel Pereyra (Harvard), "'Oriental, Dusky, Beauty': Performing Filipina Minstrelsy in 1898" and Jonathan Karp (Harvard), Title TBA @ Barker 012, 5:00pm

Wednesday, April 3 

Noe Montez (Tufts), "There’s No Substitute for Confrontation: Athlete Activism in the BLM Movement" @ Barker 269, 6:00pm

Thursday, April 11 

Rizvana Bradley (Yale), "Performative Detachments" @ Barker 114, 5:00pm

Friday, April 26

Per(form)ance: A Graduate Symposium on Performance and Form @ Lamont Forum Room, 9:00am to 4:00pm 

Fall 2018 Schedule

Thursday, September 20

Christine Mok (University of Rhode Island), "Vietnam in Virginia: An-My Lê’s Small Wars" @ Barker 024, 5:30pm

Thursday, October 4

Douglas Ishii (Emerson College), "Let It Come Down: James Iha and the Elsewheres of Asian American Joyl" @ Barker 114, 5pm

Thursday, October 11 

Philipp Schweighauser (University of Basel), "45 Degrees: Autoimmunity in Beckett's Film" @ Barker 114, 5pm

Wednesday, October 24

Leon Hilton (Brown), "AIDS in the Future Anterior: or, Sex and Real Estate 

(on THEM and Reza Abdoh)" @ Barker 211, 5pm

Thursday, November 8

Patricia Ybarra (Brown), "Why is Such a Man Alive? Rethinking Reza Abdoh in the times of Donald Trump" @ Barker 024, 5:30pm

Fall 2015 Schedule

Wednesday, October 7: Amy Hughes (CUNY), "The Intermediality of Nineteenth-Century Melodrama" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, October 21: Robin Bernstein (Harvard), "Black Childhood on Trial: The Tragedy of William Freeman" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, October 28: Samuel Adams (USC), “Returns of the Avant-Garde in German Theater from Film Montage to Television Art” @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, November 11: Leah Lowthorp (Harvard), "Freedom in Performance: Actresses and Creative Agency in the Kutiyattam Theater Complex" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, December 2: Tarryn Chun (Harvard), "Multimedia Design and Digital Interventions in Contemporary Chinese Theater" @ Kresge Room

Spring 2015 Schedule

Wednesday, February 11: Douglas A. Jones (Rutgers), “Frederick Douglass and the Aesthetics of Black Evangelical Homiletics” @ Kresge Room

*Co-sponsored by the American Colloquium and the Committee on Dramatic Arts

Wednesday, February 25: Ju Yon Kim (Harvard), "The Suspect Audiences of M. Butterfly" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, 3/11: "Theater and the Image: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Panel" with Samuel Adams (USC), Matt Franks (Harvard), Rebecca Kastleman (Harvard), Sophia Zhao (Stanford) @ Kresge Room

This event will feature four short papers from graduate students in the advanced stages of their dissertation projects, relating to a single topic and followed by a moderated discussion.

Tuesday, March 24: Jason Fitzgerald (Columbia), “The Impossible Study: Joseph Chaikin’s Humanism” @ Barker 133

Thursday, April 9: Needles and Opium at ArtsEmerson

Wednesday, April 22: "The Future of Theater at Harvard: An Open Forum" @ Thompson Room

This special event will bring faculty, administrators, and undergraduate and graduate students together for a roundtable discussion on the pedagogy and practice of theater at Harvard, specifically with regards to the new Theater, Dance, and Media (TDM) undergraduate concentration. Speakers will include Martin Puchner (TDM Chair), Jack Megan (Director of the Office for the Arts) and Magdalene Zier (incoming president, Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club).

*Sponsored by the Committee on Dramatic Arts

Fall 2014 Schedule

Wednesday, September 10: Joseph Roach (Yale), "Biography and Celebrity Culture" @ Kresge Room

*Co-sponsored by the Renaissance Colloquium

Wednesday, September 17: John Robbins (Tufts), "Acting Like a Scientist: How the Theater Created Modern Science" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, October 1: Gibson Cima (Tufts), "Gaps in Translation: South African Restorative Justice Performance on Global Stages" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, October 8: Joint Colloquium Presentation with James Simpson (Harvard University), "How to Write an Article About Anything" @ Kresge Room

Friday, October 17: King Lear at ArtsEmerson

Wednesday, October 29: Claire Conceison (Duke/Harvard), "Collective Identity and Revolutionary Nostalgia in Two Popular Chinese Performances: Beijing's Classic Red-Themed Restaurant and Meng Jinghui's I Love XXX" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, November 12: Jacob Stulberg (Harvard), "Backchat and Crosstalk: Pinter and the BBC" @ Kresge Room

Spring 2014 Schedule

Wednesday, February 12: Andrew Sofer (Boston College), "The Phenomenology of the Closet: HAMLET's Dark Matter" @ Kresge Room

*Co-sponsored by the Committee on Dramatic Arts

Wednesday, February 26: Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University), "Syllogism and Tragedy: Drama and Philosophy in Oedipus Tyrannos and Antigone" @ Kresge Room

*Co-sponsored by the Committee on Dramatic Arts

Wednesday, March 12: Elizabeth Phillips (Harvard), "'Understand how bad and boring your lives are:' The Paradox of Chekhovian Attention" @ Barker 403

Wednesday, March 26: Derek Miller (Harvard), "Graphs, Maps, Trees, and Theater History" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, April 9: Lawrence Switzky (Toronto), "Ethics for Autocrats: On the Origins of Directors' Theatre" @ Kresge Room

*Co-sponsored by the Committee on Dramatic Arts

Wednesday, April 23: Rebecca Kastleman (Harvard), "Theater, Religion, Zealotry" @ Kresge Room

Fall 2013 Schedule

Monday, September 9: Martin Harries (UC Irvine), "Theater and Mass Culture: Walter Benjamin and Samuel Beckett" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, September 25: Minou Arjomand (BU), "Theatrical Dissent: Brecht and the 1953 Uprisings in East Germany" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, October 9: Alisa Sniderman (Harvard), "Herr Reicher's Year: The Modern Stage Experiment in the History of American Drama" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, October 23: Magda Romanska (Emerson), "Of Drammatology: The Post-traumatic Sign in the Works of Tadeusz Kantor" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, November 6: Matt Franks (Harvard), "Eliza and her bath: the drama, the novel, and Edwardian censorship" @ Kresge Room

Wednesday, November 20: Heather Nathans (Tufts) "'Play for more than you can afford to lose': Risk and Reward in Research and the Profession" @ Kresge Room

Spring 2013 Schedule

Tuesday, February 12, 2013: Welcome Party! @ Kresge Room

*Co-sponsored with our friends from the British Literature Colloquium. Drinks and snacks on hand.

Friday, February 15: You for me for you @ BCA Plaza Theatre

Wednesday, February 20: Stephen Squibb (Harvard University), "Three Visions of Modernism" @ Dana Palmer Seminar Room

Tuesday, February 26: David Levine (Radcliffe), "Character Analysis" @ Kresge Room

Friday, March 1: The Glass Menagerie  @ American Repertory Theater

Monday, March 4: Prof. Stuart Hecht (BC), Workshop on the process of submitting articles to theater journals @ Kates Room, Warren House

Wednesday, March 13: Alan Ackerman (Toronto), "Comedy, Capitalism, and a Loss of Gravity" @ Sever 212

Tuesday, April 16: Shannon Jackson (UC Berkeley) @ 11:00am

*We're delighted that Professor Jackson will be delivering this year's Spencer Lecture on Tuesday, April 16, at 5:00 PM in Harvard Hall 201. In conjunction with the lecture, the Drama Colloquium will be sponsoring a brunch with Prof. Jackson. Space is limited, so please let us know as soon as possible if you'd like to attend.

Tuesday, April 23:Annalisa Sacchi (Harvard), "Epic of the Dust: the Theatre of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio" @ Kates Room, Warren House

Thursday, May 2: David Kurnick (Rutgers University) @ 1:00pm

We're delighted that Professor Kurnick will be speaking at the Mahindra Humanities Center as part of the Victorian Literature and Culture seminar on Thursday, May 2 at 6:00 pm. In conjunction with this talk, the Drama Colloquium and the British Literature Colloquium will be co-sponsoring a lunch with Prof. Kurnick. Space is limited, so please let us know as soon as possible if you'd like to attend.

Fall 2012 Schedule

Wednesday, September 19: Carrie Preston (BU), "Yeats's Irish Theater, Japanese Noh Drama, and the Play of Undead Nations" @ Kates Room, Warren House

Friday, September 21: Welcome Party! @ Barker 114

*Co-sponsored with our friends from the British Literature Colloquium. Drinks and snacks on hand. 

Thursday, September 27: Marie Antoinette @ American Repertory Theater

*We'll meet at the American Repertory Theater to get student rush tickets ($15 each). If you can't make it to the show on Thursday, we encourage you to see it at another time, and to meet us for an informal postshow discussion at 10 PM on 9/27 at Casablanca Restaurant (desserts provided).

Wednesday, October 3: Tarryn Chun (Harvard University), "Screening the White Snake: Intermedial History and Intertextuality on the Taiwanese Stage" @ Kates Room, Warren House 

Saturday, October 13: Hamlet @ ArtsEmerson

*We'll meet at Out of Town News at 1:15pm to travel to the theater together. This event is co-sponsored with the Renaissance Colloquium

Monday, October 22: "Unnatural Acts" @ American Repertory Theater

*Since tickets are free, we encourage you to book your tickets online or at the box office in advance (limit 2 per person). Please let us know if you'll be attending and would like to join us for dessert after, so we'll know to look out for you. 

Wednesday, November 7: Arnold Aronson (Columbia), "Time Is on My Side (of the curtain): The Scenographic Construction of Time" @ Kates Room, Warren House 

*Co-sponsored with the Committee on Dramatic Arts. 

Wednesday, November 28: Debra Caplan (Harvard), "'The Sun Never Sets on the Yiddish Stage': Global Theater History and the Digital Frontier" @ Kates Room, Warren House