"Hold on to That Feeling": Disciplinary Formations and Asian B-Sides

Abstract:

This essay is a personal and self-reflective account of how disciplinary and sub-disciplinary formations operate within the field of theatre and performance studies materially, politically, and economically. Reflecting on the five years since the publication of the author’s Theatre Journal article, “Feeling in Counterpoint” (2018), the article addresses how disciplinary formations work to enact harm on racialized and minoritized scholars in the field. Writing from the perspective of the field in the United Kingdom, the essay reflects on two significant moments in the author’s experience. First, the collective writing and publication of the open letter “White Colleague Listen!” in 2020, when UK theatre, dance, and performance studies scholars of the Global Majority articulated their experiences and desires for change in the field. Second, the author’s work of community building with the New Earth Performer’s Academy, a program for emerging East and Southeast Asian actors and performers. Between these two events, the essay argues that in order to transform itself, the field must come to terms with desire—in other words, scholars must be explicit about the desire that compels them toward their subject matter and their research.