The Performance and Politics of Truth

This half-day symposium puts Foucault into contact with performance and performance theory. As Tony Fisher and Kélina Gotman observe in Foucault’s Theatres (2020), although Foucault's work has been keenly influential for many scholars of performance, direct engagement of his work that starts with performance practice and theory has been surprisingly scant. Participants in this event will take up this challenge, asking: What would it mean to take seriously the art in Foucault’s famous analysis of the “art of government”? What does an analysis of and from performance and the performative bring to our understanding of the contemporary politics of truth-telling? This symposium is part of the .

Event co-sponsors: Department of Performance Studies, Center for Research & Study, Tisch School of the Arts; Center for Research & Study, Tisch School of the Arts; Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, World Congress, Foucault: 40 Years After

2:00 pm EST – Keynote lecture by Mark D. Jordan (Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Research Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School)

4:00 pm EST – Panel featuring:

André Lepecki (Professor of Performance Studies, NYU; and Associate Dean. Center for Research and Study, Tisch School of the Arts)

Ann Pellegrini (Professor of Performance Studies & Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU)

Karen Shimakawa (Associate Professor of Performance Studies, NYU; and Co-Associate Dean of Faculty, Tisch School of the Arts)

Reception to follow.

Host or Publisher NYU’s Performance Studies Department