Dr Swati Arora, BA (Delhi) MA (Amsterdam/Warwick) PhD (Exeter) Lecturer in Performance and Global South StudiesEmail: swati.arora@qmul.ac.ukOffice Hours: See QMplusProfileTeachingResearchPublicationsSupervisionProfileMy work engages with the intersections of performance and visual culture, feminist theory, Black Study, and dramaturgies of urban space in the global South. Across my research, writing, and pedagogy, I am concerned with how different forms of performance and artistic production challenge colonial histories, epistemologies, and their corresponding debris. Prior to joining Queen Mary, I worked as Lecturer at King’s College London. I have held fellowships at the Centre for Humanities Research; Women’s and Gender Studies Department, UWC, South Africa; and TU-Dresden, Germany. During 2011-13 and 2019-21, I co-convened the Performance in Public Spaces working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Currently, I am part of the editorial board of C21 Literature: Journal of 21st Century Writings. Teaching Power Plays Culture, Power, Performance Performance and Visual Culture in South Asia Beyond Acting Culture, Performance, Globalisation ResearchResearch Interests: Performance and colonialism Transnational feminisms South Asian and diasporic performance cultures Black geographies Recent and On-Going Research Supported by Mellon foundation, I am working on a monograph that looks at the relationship between urban performance practices and public spaces in Delhi. It explores how performances on the streets respond to the neoliberal project of urbanisation and restructuring of the city, while navigating the dynamics of class, caste, gender, sexuality, and religion. I organised several international research events on related themes during my tenure as a co-convener of Performance in Public Spaces working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Alongside, I am co-editing a book on pluriversal conversations on transnational feminisms. Funded by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education, this volume is the culminating output of a collaboration with Linköping University, University of Bergen, Central European University, and the University of Western Cape. With a focus on feminist ‘trickster’ methodologies for research that is committed to justice-to-come, the essays, interviews, fiction, poetry, and short reflective pieces in the volume explore transversal relations, ongoing communion with the dead, friendships, decolonisation, and an ethics of planetary sustainability. With colleagues at the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, UWC, South Africa, I am part of ongoing, interdisciplinary projects on pedagogies of refusal and critical humanities for sexual and gender justice scholarship. Some of this work has been published as an essay on ‘Performing Refusal’ in Injury and Intimacy (MUP, 2022) and as ‘A manifesto to decentre theatre and performance studies’ (STP, 2021). Grants and Fellowships Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship UK-India Education and Research Initiative fellowship European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus funding German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) visiting researcher fellowship Centre for Humanities Research, South Africa research fund University of Leiden’s International Institute for Asian Studies fund Publications ‘Disobedient Women and Theatre Historiography in India’, in The Methuen Drama Handbook to Gender and Theatre, ed. by Sean Metzger and Roberta Mock. London: Bloomsbury. Forthcoming. ‘A Place Called Home’, Wasafiri (2022). ‘Fugitive Aesthetics: Performing Refusal in Four Acts’, in Injury and Intimacy: In the Wake of #MeToo in India and South Africa, ed. by Nicky Falkoff, Shilpa Phadke and Srila Roy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022. ‘A manifesto to decentre theatre and performance studies’, Studies in Theatre and Performance 41.1 (2021): 12-20. ‘Walk in India and South Africa: notes towards a decolonial and transnational feminist politics’, Translation and performance in the age of global asymmetries Part 2 special issue, South African Theatre Journal 33.1 (2020): 14-33. ‘Walking at Midnight: Women and Danger on Delhi’s Streets’, Walking in/as Publics special issue, Journal of Public Pedagogies 4 (2019): 172-176. [Book review] Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times, Contemporary Theatre Review 28.3 (2018): 419-421. SupervisionI would welcome enquiries from potential doctoral students interested in any areas of my research. Current students: Tobi Poster-Su, ‘Towards a Critical Puppetry: Racialisation and Material Performance’ — with Nicholas Ridout and Martin O’Brien. Jordan/Martin Hell, ‘Black Deviations, Archival Speculations: Black Feminist Practice-led Research in 20th Century Literature and Performance’ — with Nisha Ramayya and Isabel Waidner.
