Identity, Culture, and the Science Performance, Volume 1

Vivian Appler is Associate Professor of Theatre at the College of Charleston, USA. She has published scholarship at the intersection of science and performance in Global Performance Studies, Theatre History Studies, and other journals. She is a former fellow of Fulbright and the Huntington Library, USA. Meredith Conti is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA. She is the author of Playing Sick: Performance of Illness in the Age of Victorian Medicine (2018) and the co-editor (along with Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.) of Theatre and the Macabre (2021).

List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Taking it to the Streets: Performing Science in Public, Meredith Conti (University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA) and Vivian Appler (College of Charleston, USA)

Part I: Building Community and Imagining Worlds through the Science Performance

Performance Artists Roundtable, Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan, USA / Artistic Director of The Olimpias), Stephanie Heit (The Olimpias, USA) Lanxing Fu (Co-Director, Superhero Clubhouse, USA), and Jeremy Pickard (Co-Director, Superhero Clubhouse, USA)

1. SF For Many Modernities: Hybridity in the Worlds of Margaret Cavendish and Donna Haraway, Vivian Appler (College of Charleston, USA)
2. Cultivating Ensembles: A Relational Reflection on Creating Cultural Transformation with New Performances of Science, Raquell M. Holmes (Founder, Improvscience /Arizona State University, USA)
3. Shadow Ecologies: Shadow Puppets as Science Performance, Alison Dell (St. Francis College, USA / Co-Founder, Art in the Lab), Stephanie Dowdy-Nava (Co-Founder, ART±BIO Collaborative / Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA), Armando de la Torre (Independent Artist / former ART±BIO Cultivo), and Saúl S. Nava (Co-Founder, ART±BIO Collaborative / Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA)

Creative Interlude: "Absence," "Richard Has Gone Fishing" and "Bioengineered Life Lungs", Kate Gillespie (SUNY Cobleskill, USA)

Part 2: Performing Science in the Public Laboratory

4. A Lecture on Heads and Lectures with Skulls – Performance Transmutations, Marlis Schweitzer (York University, Canada)
5. Performing Paleontology at the Natural History Museum, Shelby Brewster (Michigan State University, USA)
6. Ether, Sawdust, Sweat, and Blood: Towards a Dramaturgy of Smells in Victorian Operating Theatres, Meredith Conti (University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA)

Creative Interlude: Morehu & Titi, David Geary (Capilano University, Canada)

Part 3: Experimentation, Exhibition, and Ethics

7. Anatomical Acts: Minstrelsy and Nineteenth-Century Performances of Popular Anatomy, Mia Levenson (Tufts University, USA)
8. Staging Science and Humanity in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest, Radhica Ganapathy (West Virginia University, USA)
9. Do Goats Have a Right to Cigarettes? A Cross-Disciplinary Investigation of the Ethics of Non-Human Animal Performances, Jennifer A. Kokai (Weber State University, USA) and Lauren Kokai (University of Pittsburgh, USA)

Science Communicators Roundtable, Raven Baxter ('Raven the Science Maven', Founder, STEMbassy, USA), Katherine Inderbitzen (Nautilus Live: Ocean Exploration Trust), and Sahana Srinivasan (Host of Netflix’s STEAM children’s series Brainchild / actor, comedian, and filmmaker)

Selected Bibliography
Index