Gregg Deal's White Indian (2016): The Decolonial Possibilities of Museum Performance

Gregg Deal (Pyramid Lake Paiute) is a performance and visual artist whose work deals explicitly in decolonizing the contemporary experience of Indigenous peoples. An analysis of his performance ofWhite Indian in 2016 at the Denver Art Museum opens up the possibilities of performance as a method for museums to decolonize their spaces and curation

Between Antagonism and Eros: The Feud as Couple Form and Netflix’s GLOW

A feud is an antagonism that is continuous and extended; “a state of prolonged mutual hostility” (OED). Historically, feuds take place between families or communities, or result from failed couples. Considered as a couple form in its own right, however, the feud is associated with aesthetic forms often coded as camp, queer, or feminized. In such popular, serialized forms, the feud must be open ended and of unforeseen futurity, for resolution brings an end to the feud as such and dissolves the couple. Thus, feuds reject normative modes of coupling (such as the nuclear family) that center harmonious or happy feelings. The article begins with the political economy of the feud through an examination of the pre-modern form of the blood feud and continues with its late-modern presence in popular culture. We rehearse the idea of the feud as it emerges from anthropology and philosophy, especially as it impacts notions of debt and alternative economies, before thinking through the contemporary “coupling” of the feud in popular culture, fandom, and, via the performance form of professional wrestling and Netflix’s GLOW

Standing Between Reservation and Nation: Indigenous Performance in North America after the end of the Indian Wars

Standing Between Reservation and Nation: Indigenous performance in North America after the end of the Indian Wars Christiana Fay Molldrem Harkulich, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2017 This dissertation asserts that performance as a means of representation has a profound connection to the political position and projects of Indigenous peoples in North America. Through three case studies, my project is a constellational history of Indigenous performance’s decolonial imaginary and enactment. I theorize that the act of standing -- both figuratively standing for, i.e. representation, as well as the physical act of standing -- is a visible decolonial intervention into historical narratives of the Americas constructed and upheld by national (i.e. nation-state based) politics. Drawing from theatre and performance studies methodologies and historiographies, border theory, and coloniality, I argue that performances by Indigenous women function as critical moments of standing that destabilize and reconfigure nation-state bound histories, narratives, and borders. This is explored through three case studies of Indigenous women’s performances that span the 20th century: the first discusses Princess White Deer’s Vaudeville and Broadway performances in the 1910s-1920s and questions of citizenship; the second examines Anna Mae Pictou Aquash’s acts of standing during the protests of the American Indian Movement from 1968-1976 and questions of sovereignty; and the third analyzes Monique Mojica’s play and production of Princess Pocahontas and The Blue Spots and a decolonial dramaturgy in the 1990s. As a whole, this project points to the complicated political position of Indigenous peoples in North America and the necessity of acts of decolonial imagining