Performance Studies Alumni

Ph.D. Recipients

Listed below are the names, dissertation titles, and job titles (if available) of individuals who have completed the Ph.D. program since its inception in 1998.

Aldape Muñoz, Juan Manuel 

Choreotopias: Performance, State Violence, and the Near Past — Spring 2020

2020 Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Society for the Humanities, Cornell Univeristy 

Anderson, Patrick

So Much Wasted: Violence Performed In Anorexia Nervosa, Staged Fasts, and Hunger Striking — Spring 2005

UC San Diego, Associate Professor, Communications and Ethnic Studies, Director of Critical Gender Studies 

Baker, Miyuki

Embodied Study for Collective Liberation: Everyday Performances of Solidarity — Spring 2022

Bayraktar, Nilgun

Moving Images Against the Current: The Aesthetics and Geopolitics of (Im)mobility in Contemporary Europe — Fall 2011

2011 UC Berkeley, R&C Lectureship

2012 Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, Instructor, Humanities

2015 California College of the Arts, Assistant Professor, Visual Studies

Belmar, Sima

Easier Said Than Done: Talking Identity in Late Twentieth-Century American Concert Dance — Spring 2015

2015 UC Berkeley, Lecturer, Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

Boucai, Marc

Narrating Normal: Arabs, Queers, Neoliberal Spectatorship — Fall 2013

2014 Theatre Director at AS220, Providence, RI

Boyle, Michael Shane

The Ambivalence of Resistance: West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence — Fall 2012

Spring 2013 – Harvard University, Lecturer, College Writing Program

2013 Stanford University, Postdoctoral Lecturer in the Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture Program

2014 Queen Mary, University of London, School of English and Drama, Lecturer in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, Director of MA in Theatre and Performance

Bragin, Naomi

Black Power of Hip Hop Dance: On Kinesthetic Politics — Spring 2015

2015-2016 UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, UC Riverside

2015-current (On leave 2015-16) University of Washington, Bothell, Assistant Professor, Performance Studies

Burriss, Catherine

Performing Theory: Gendered and Erotic Complications in Cinquecento Italian Comedies, and some English Reverberations — Fall 2006

CSU Channel Islands, Associate Professor, Performing Arts

Cappelli, Renu

Inadmissible Presence: Objecthood, Spectacle, and the Theatricality of Race — Fall 2007

2008-2011 Stanford University, Post-doctoral Scholar, Introduction to the Humanities

2013 UC San Diego, Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies

San Francisco State University, Lecturer, Women and Gender Studies

California College of the Arts, Senior Lecturer, Critical Studies

Case, Gretchen

Medical Scarring and the Performance of Memory — Fall 2005

Duke University, University Writing Program Fellow

Northwestern University, Adjunct Lecturer, Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program

2011 University of Utah School of Medicine, Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities

Casey, Carrie Gaiser

Ballet’s Feminisms: Genealogy and Gender in Twentieth-Century American Ballet History — Fall 2009

St. Mary’s College of California, Adjunct Professor, Liberal Education for Arts Professionals program

Conley, Miyoko

Transnational Bodies: Audience Performance in Anime and K-pop Media and Theatre Ecologies — Summer 2021

Crow, Heather

Heather Warren-Crow

POSSESSIONS: Animated Bodies in Mediated Performance — Fall 2006

Texas Tech University, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts, Director of Fine Arts Doctoral Program

Daley, Lashon

Black Girl Lit: The Coming of (R)age Performances in Contemporary U.S. Black Girlhood Narratives, 1989-2019 — Summer 2021

2021 San Diego State University , Assistant Professor, Department of English & Comparative Literature

Davis, Reid

Passed Away June 2019

Sissy Warriors: Perversity, Performance, and the Unruly Child — Fall 2006

St. Mary’s College, Adjunct Professor, Ethnic Studies and Performing Arts

The Artory Foundation, Artistic Director

Marin Theatre Company, Director of Education

Duong, Natalia

Chemical Diasporas: Legal, Cultural, and Aesthetic Performances of Agent Orange — Summer 2020

2020 Pomona College, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies

Duffly, Catherine

From Farm to Table to Stage: Performing Food Politics — Fall 2011

2011 UC Berkeley, R&C Lecturer and California College of the Arts, Lecturer

2012 Reed College, Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre

Evans, Randi

Social Dance after Social Practice: Between the Stage and the Museum

Ferro-Murray, Ashley

Choreography in the Digital Era: Dancing the Cultural Differences of Technology — Spring 2016

2016 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY, Curator of Theater and Dance at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)

Fisek, Emine

Incorporating Immigrants: Theatrical Aid Work and the Politics of Witnessing in France — Spring 2010

Johns Hopkins University, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, Krieger School of Arts and Science, German and Romance Languages and Literatures

2012 Bogazici University, Turkey, Assistant Professor, Department of Western Languages and Literature

Fisher, Margaret

Recovery of Ezra Pound’s Third Opera Collis O Heliconii: The Transmission of History Through Song — Spring 2003

Second Evening Arts Publishing

Gold, Thea

Is the Musical Disabled? — Spring 2019

Gough, Kathleen

Bleeding Regions: Performance and Politics in the ‘Backwaters’ of the Atlantic — Fall 2005

University of Glasgow, Lecturer, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Advisor of Studies, Arts College Academic and Student Administration

2014 University of Vermont, Assistant Professor and Resident Dramaturge,Theatre Department 

Hagstrom-Stahl, Kristina

Melancholy Traces: Performing the Work of Mourning — Fall 2006

Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Lund University, Sweden, and also teaches at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts

University of Gothenburg, Professor of Performative Arts at the Academy of Music and Drama

Havard, Julia

Queer Burlesque's Histories, Fantasies, and Futures — Spring 2021

2021 Dartmouth, Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

2021 Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellow

Herrera-Lasso Gonzalez, Martha

Reginalizing NAFTA: Theaters of Translation in Mexico City and Quebec — Summer 2019

Hoetger, Megan

Rude and Playful Shadows: Collective Performances of Cinema in Cold War Europe — Spring 2019

Visiting scholar, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at Ghent University

2019 Research fellowship, Dresden, Germany

Hoffmann, Beth

Acting without Guarantees: The Politics of Form in Contemporary British Performance — Fall 2008

George Mason University, Assistant Professor, English Department

Johung, Jennifer

Replacements: From the Primordial Hut to the Digital Network — Spring 2008

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Associate Professor, Department of Art History

Johnson, Paige

Waria Genres: Identity, Embodiment, and the Performance of Gendered Belonging in Contemporary Indonesia — Fall 2019

2018-Present  Assistant professor of Performance & Race, Department of Theatre, Barnard College 

Kokontis, Kate

Performative Returns and the Rememory of History: Genealogy and Performativity in the American Racial State — Fall 2011

2011 New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Academic Studio: Founding Faculty, Chair, Integrated Humanities

Levin, Laura

Performing World — Spring 2005

York University, Associate Professor, Theatre Studies and Director, Graduate Program in Theatre & Performance Studies

Lu, Joyce

Dreaming in Other Languages: On the Performance of Autobiographical Narrative as Decolonizing Pedagogy — Spring 2007

Pomona College, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow

2008 Pomona College, Assistant Professor, Theatre and Dance

Luna, Caleb

Undisciplined Bodies: Race, Size and Sexuality in U.S. Media and Culture — Spring 2022

2022 UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California

Marshall, Caitlin

"Power in the Tongue": Staging American Voice — Spring 2016

2016-17 Postdoctoral position in Theater and Performance Studies, University of Maryland

2017-Present  Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre History & Performance Studies, University of Maryland

Martin-Baron, Michelle

née Michelle Baron

Queering US Public Mourning Rituals: Funerals, Performance, and the Construction of Normativity — Summer 2011

2011 Oberlin College, Visiting Assistant Professor

2012 Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies

Mattingly, Kate

Set in Motion: Dance Criticism and the Choreographic Apparatus — Spring 2017

2017 University of Utah, School of Dance, Assistant Professor

McGonigal, Jane

This Might be a Game: Ubiquitous Play Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century — Fall 2006

Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, CA, Director of Games Research and Development

McIvor, Charlotte

The New Interculturalism: Race, Gender and Immigration in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland — Spring 2011

National University of Ireland, Galway, Lecturer Above The Bar, Drama & Theatre Studies

Nambiar, Aparna

Reassembling Traditional Dance: Choreographic Reassembly and Cultural Mutation in a Multicultural Diaspora — Spring 2022

2022 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Asian Research Institute at the National University of Singapore

Nguyen, Khai Thu 

Sensing Vietnam: Melodramas of Nation from Colonialism to Market Reform — Spring 2010

University of California, Berkeley, James R. Gray R&C Lecturer, College of Letters and Science

University of California, Berkeley, UC Extension, Special Assistant to the Dean

2016 University of California, Berkeley, Associate Director, Consortium for Interdisciplinary Research

Palacios, Joy Crosby

Preaching for the Eyes: Priests, Actors, and Ceremonial Splendor in Early Modern France — Summer 2012

2014-17 Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada, Assistant Professor of Literature, Department of French

2017 University of Calgary, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics and Religion

Prieur, Nina Billone

In the System: Art, Prison, and the Performance of Social Welfare — Fall 2010

2010 Duke University, Assistant Professor, Theatre Studies

Georgetown University, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Performing Arts

Rafferty, Kelly Ann

Performing ARTs: Technologies of Participation and Reproduction from Body Art to Bio Art — Spring 2010

Arizona State University, Assistant Professor of Performance Studies

2013: Independent artist, educator, and facilitator in Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles

Ramos, Ivan

Sonic Negations: Sound, Affect, and Unbelonging Between Mexico and the United States — Spring 2015

2015-2017 UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, UC Riverside

2017 University of Maryland, Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies

Rastovac, Heather

Performing (Trans)National Iranianness: The Choreographic Cartographies of Diasporic Iranian Dancers and Performance Artists — Summer 2016

2016-2018  Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University, Dance

2018-Present  UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in UC Davis’s Department of Asian American Studies

Ricks, Omar

On Jubilee: The Performance of Black Leadership in the Afterlife of Slavery — Spring 2014

Richards, Kimberly

Crude Stages of the Capitalocene: Performance and Petro-Imperialism — Summer 2019

Fall 2019 Instructor, Department of English, University of the Fraser Valley, BC, Canada

2021 University of Alberta, Postdoc, Transition in Energy, Culture, and Society Network

2022 University of British Columbia, School of Journalism, Writing, and Media 

Rivera, Takeo

Minority Models: Masochism, Masculinity, and the Machine in Asian American Cultural Politics — Spring 2017

2017 Boston University, Department of English, Assistant Professor

Scott, Ariel Osterweis

Body Impossible: Dynamics of Race, Sexuality, and Virtuosity in the Dance of Desmond Richardson — Fall 2011

Wayne State University Michigan, Assistant Professor of Dance

2014 Skidmore College, Dance Department, Visiting Scholar/Artist

2016 California Institute of the Arts, Assistant Professor, School of Dance

Seetoo, Chia-Yi

The Political Kinesthetics of Contemporary Dance: Taiwan in Transnational Perspective — Spring 2013

Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Shanghai Theatre Academy

2019-Present  Lecturer, Shanghai Theatre Academy

Shalson, Lara

Endurance: Arts, Politics, and Performance — Fall 2008

King’s College London, Lecturer, Theatre and Performance Studies

Shankar, Karin

Molecular Aesthetics: Contemporary Art and Performance in Delhi — Spring 2016

2016-17  Andrew W. Mellon Global Postdoctoral Fellow at Creative Time in NYC

2017 Department of Humanities and Media, Pratt Institute, Assistant Professor of Performance Studies

Sherman, Stephanie

(Dis)Plazas and (Dis)Placed Danzas: Space, Trauma, and Moving Bodies in Mexico City — Fall 2016

2017 Visiting Professor, Arts Department, Universidad de las Américas in Puebla, Mexico

2018 Fulbright COMEXUS Garcia Robles Postdoctoral Scholar, Universidad Nacional Autónoma Mexicana and Teatro Ciego, Mexico City.

2021 Adjunct Lecturer, Dance, Mills College

Sizemore-Barber, April

Prismatic Performances: Queer South African Identity and the Deconstruction of the Rainbow Nation — Fall 2013

2014 Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Visiting Assistant Professor, Women’s Studies

2015 Postdoctoral Scholar Royal Holloway, University

2015 –  Georgetown University, Assistant Professor of the Practice, Women’s and Gender Studies Program

Stufft, Monica

Chorus Girl Collective: Early 20th Century American Performance Communities and Urban Networking — Spring 2008

University of San Diego, Assistant Professor, Theatre

Taylor, Joanne Stoddard 

21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance — Fall 2011

Berkeley City College, Adjunct Faculty, Humanities

Diablo Valley College, Adjunct Faculty, Humanities

San Francisco State University, Adjunct Professor, Business

Wallin, Scott

Madness in the Making: Psychosocial Disability and Theater — Spring 2014

2014-15 UC Berkeley, Lecturer, Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

2015 Stanford University, Postdoctoral Lecturer in the Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture Program

2016 UC Berkeley, Lecturer, Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

2017-Present  UC Berkeley, Lecturer, College Writing Programs

Williams, Joshua

Don’t Show A Hyena How Well You Can Bite: Performance, Race and the Animal Subaltern in Eastern Africa — Spring 2017

2016 Harvard University, Preceptor of Expository Writing, Harvard College Writing Program

2018 NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow, Drama Department

Woolf, Brandon

Paradigmatic Stages: Performing Arts Policy in Post-Wall Berlin — Summer 2014

2016 New York University, Visiting Assistant Professor, English Department

2018-Present  Clinical Associate Professor; Director, Program in Dramatic Literature

Yapp, Hentyle

Minor China: Affect, Performance, & Contemporary China in the Global — Spring 2014

2014-15 Pomona College, Postdoctoral Appointment

2015 Pomona College, Assistant Professor

2016 New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Assistant Professor, Art and Public Policy


M.A. Recipients

Espinoza, Laila

La Casa Verde: Resistance and Renewal from the House to the Streets on the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands — Summer 2020

McKeithan, Sean

Consuming Nostalgia: Heritage Masculinity and Material Culture — Summer 2015

Sealy-Thompson, Tonika

Conjuration and Procession: Performing Feminist Politics in the Black Diaspora — Fall 2018

2019 Barbados’ Ambassador to Brazil