Festivals of the Americas: Staging Identity, Politics, and Utopian Performance

Our aim is two-fold:

1) To produce a book titled Festivals of the Americas: Staging Identity, Politics, and Utopian Performance which locates the festival or “fiesta” as a site for utopian/dystopian negotiation of identity, politics and nationality in the context of the Americas. This anthology will include scholars from around the Americas whose work focuses on festivals as utopian sites for social transformation. The “Americas” as a theoretical discourse frames the book and allows us to place festivals occurring across the hemisphere side by side in dynamic conversation with one another. As conveners and editors of the anthology, our own work reflects a sustained commitment to scholarship and inquiry into the festival: Pegge Vissicaro’s work examines Festas Juninas as a utopian site for community engagement in Brazil. Rachel Bowditch’s book On the Edge of Utopia: Performance and Ritual at Burning Man analyzes the Burning Man festival as a rehearsal for utopian ideals within the realm of globalization. Tracy Fessenden recently guest-edited a special issue of the Journal of Southern Religion that focused in part on rethinking the category of utopia in American religious history in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

2) To apply for external funding  to produce an international conference at Arizona State University on Festivals of the Americas.  This will be the first international conference to assemble scholars from Performance Studies, Dance, Religious Studies, Languages and Literature, Philosophy, and Theatre and Performance of the Americas in a trans-disciplinary hemispheric dialogue of festivals across the Americas specifically around the theme of utopia/dystopia and social transformation. The conference activities will be supplemented by performances, readings, and community events in collaboration with various organizations, and will complement the publication of our projected volume.

See Pegge Vissicaro's weblog about her experiences in São Paulo, Brazil for the Festas Juninas.