IHGG Brown Bag Talks: Presentation Series
You are cordially invited to the final IHGG Brown Bag Talk Presentation this semester.
In a time of ecological urgency at both global and local levels, how can outdoor theatre both call attention to disturbances in the natural world and ecological crises, while also helping to imagine more cooperative and sustainable treatments of the non-human and human alike? This talk explores this question, and asserts that the hundreds of outdoor Shakespeare festivals around the world are as capable as any drama of participating in what Theresa J. May calls “ecodramaturgy,” which is theatre making that puts ecological reciprocity and community at the center of its theatrical and thematic intent.
Dr. Brokaw will illustrate this assertion with examples from practice-based research as the co-founder and co-director of Shakespeare in Yosemite, a new festival founded (with Paul Prescott) in 2017, which performs free Shakespeare in Yosemite National Park every April in celebration of Earth Day and National Park Week. Working collaboratively with students and park staff, the place-based Shakespearean theatre in the heart of Yosemite Valley foregrounds themes relating to ecological crisis and prompts individual and collective responsibility and action in its audience. This project will be used to talk more generally about conducting humanities research that is collaborative, community-engaged, practice-based, and student-centered.
For more information, please contact IHGG Chair, Dr. Kevin Dawson at kdawson4@ucmerced.edu
