Brian Eugenio Herrera, Ph.D.

Welcome to www.BrianHerrera.org!

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sat, 12 May 2012 05:59:00 +0000

BRIAN EUGENIO HERRERA, Ph.D.

Click the links at right for detailed information regarding Brian Eugenio Herrera's publications, public presentations and miscellaneous writing, as well as details on upcoming events and his ongoing writerly projects. Updates to this site will be added as events warrant.

Brian Herrera - BIO

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Brian Eugenio Herrera is, by turns, a writer, teacher and scholar presently based (and forever rooted) in New Mexico. His work, both academic and creative, explores the historical formation of gender, sexual and racial identities within U.S. popular entertainment and performance. Brian Eugenio Herrera holds degrees from Brown University, the University of New Mexico and Yale University, where he earned his PhD in American Studies (Dissertation: “Latin Explosion: Latinos, Racial Formation and Twentieth Century U.S. Popular Performance”). Brian's scholarly work has been awarded fellowship recognition from the Ford Foundation, the Smithsonian Institute, and the John Randolph & Dora Haynes Foundation. Brian has published essays or reviews in an array of publications, including Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Ecumenica, Comparative Drama and The Gay and Lesbian Review; he also served as Guest Editor for a special section of The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Brian currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee for the American Society for Theatre Research, of the Steering Committee for the American Theatre Archive Project, and of the Executive Committee for Modern Language Associaton's Drama Division. As a theatre director, Brian is an alumnus of The Drama League of New York's Directors Project (Fall Directing Program), has served as Artistic Associate with New York's Three Dollar Bill Theatre, and has worked at such theatres as Mark Taper Forum/Taper Too!, Manhattan Punchline, Circle Rep, Playwright's Horizons, and Albuquerque's Blackout Theatre. Brian's autobiographical solo show I Was the Voice of Democracy premiered as part of SoloFest2010 at Albuquerque's The Filling Station and has subsequently been seen at performance spaces in Taos, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Lawrence (KS), Chapel Hill, Ithaca, Tempe and New York City. From 2007 to 2012, Brian taught undergraduate and graduate courses in World Theatre History and Performance Theory in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of New Mexico. At UNM, Brian was recognized four times by The Project For New Mexico Graduates of Color as an Outstanding Faculty Member and, in 2010, the Weekly Alibi annual reader's poll named Brian Albuquerque's "Best Post-Secondary School Professor or Instructor." In 2012, Brian joined the faculty of Princeton University as Assistant Professor of Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts.

CREATIVE ACTIVITY

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:02:00 +0000

I Was the Voice of Democracy (Solo Show) - Writer/Performer
SoloFest 2010, The Filling Station, Albuquerque, July 2010. Premiere.

NoPassport Conference, Arizona State University-Tempe, April 2012
Resoundingly Queer, Cornell University, March 2012
Solo Takes On Festival, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, February 2012
Revolutions International Theatre Festival, Albuquerque, January 2012
Dixon Place Lounge, New York, December 2011
University of Kansas, Lawrence, October 2011
ATHE LGBQ Pre-Conference (Keynote Performance), Chicago, August 2011
KUNM Radio Theatre, Albuquerque, June 2011
University of California, Los Angeles, February 2011
The Kosmos, Albuquerque, February 2011
Annex Theatre, Seattle, November 2010
Metta Theatre, Taos, August 2010

The Encyclopedia Show ABQ - Contributing Writer/Performer ("The Future" - August 2011; "Color" - April 2011; "Moon" - February 2011; "Bears" - December 2010.)

Pieces of CAKE by Witter Bynner (Reader’s Theatre Presentation) – Director/Adaptor
University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, February 2011.

Before We Say Goodbye (Independent Feature Film) - ActorPaul Davids (Director); Yellow Hat Productions, USA/Mexico, 2010.

Gender Fabulous (Short Film Program) – Curator
7th Annual Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Albuquerque, October 2009.

Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde by Charles Ludlam (Theatre Production) – Director
Blackout Theatre @ The Box, Albuquerque, July 2009.

The Medea Complex by Patricia Crespin (Staged Reading) – Director
National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, November 2007.

PUBLICATIONS

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:41:00 +0000

ARTICLES IN REFEREED JOURNALS

"Compiling West Side Story's Parahistories, 1949-2009." Theatre Journal, Vol. 64, no. 2 (May 2012): xx-xx. [forthcoming]

"I Was a Teenaged Fabulist: The dark play of Adolescent Sexuality in U.S. Drama." Modern Drama, Vol. 53, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 332-349. [link]

EDITED VOLUMES

• Guest Editor (with Henry Bial), Special Section - "As Seen On Television," Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Vol 24, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 91-168. [pdf-intro only]

SHORT PIECES

"How Harvey Milk Recruited Me," The Gay and Lesbian Review (March-April 2009): 24. [pdf]
"Acting with My Hair" in Hair Pieces, Cary Tennis, ed. (San Francisco: Cary Tennis Books, 2009): 25-29. [pdf]

REVIEW ESSAYS
Contributing Reviewer, Talkin' Broadway (Regional-Albuquerque), 2010- .

BOOK REVIEWS
Theatre Journal
• Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Stagings of Zora Neale Hurston by Anthea Kraut. Vol. 62, no. 2 (May 2010): 322-23. [link]
• Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, Second Edition by Philip Auslander. Vol. 61, no. 4 (December 2009): 653-54. [link]

Ecumenica
• The Viagra Ad Venture: Masculinity, Media, and the Performance of Sexual Health by Jay Baglia. Vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 101-103.

Comparative Drama
• Contemporary Latina/o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity by Jon D. Rossini. Vol. 43, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 276-278. [link]

ENTRIES IN REFERENCE BOOKS
"Ethnic Drag" in Performance Studies: Routledge Key Concepts Studies, Gabrielle Cody, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2010): approved/forthcoming.

“First Novel about Coming Out to Parents Is Published” & “Second March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights” in Great Events from History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Events, 1846-2006, Lillian Faderman & Yolanda Retter, eds. (Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2006): 285-85, 469-71.

PEER REVIEW

Brian Herrera - CV - Curriculum Vita

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:39:00 +0000

BRIAN EUGENIO HERRERA

Curriculum Vitae
click here to download CV as pdf

Assistant Professor of Theatre
Department of Theatre and Dance
University of New Mexico

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in American Studies, Yale University, 2008
Dissertation: "Latin Explosion: Latinos, Racial Formation and Twentieth Century U.S. Popular Performance"
• Committee: Matthew Frye Jacobson (Chair), Steven Pitti, Alicia Schmidt-Camacho
MAJOR FIELDS OF STUDY: American Entertainments (Joseph Roach); U.S. Social and Political History, 1870-1970 (Glenda Gilmore); History of American Sexualities (Nancy F. Cott); Comparative U.S. Racial Formations in Action (Matthew Frye Jacobson).
M.A. in American Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 1998
Master’s Essay: "Exotic Erotics: The Racialization and Sexualization of Men of Color
in U.S. Popular Culture and Performance"

B.A. in American Civilization, Brown University, Providence, RI, 1990

Diploma, Manzano High School, Albuquerque, NM, 1986

EMPLOYMENT

Assistant Professor of Theater, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, Fall 2012-Present

Assistant Professor of Theatre, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of New Mexico, Fall 2007-Spring 2012

Instructor, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of New Mexico, Fall 2005- Spring 2007

Instructor, Department of English Language and Literatures, University of New Mexico, Fall 2005

Instructor, Humanities, Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute, Fall 2004-Spring 2005

Visiting Lecturer, Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance, Brown University, Fall 2003

Teaching Fellow, Assorted Programs/Departments (American Studies; History; Theatre Studies; and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies), Yale University, Fall 2000 – Spring 2002; Spring 2004

ARTICLES IN REFEREED JOURNALS

"Compiling West Side Story's Parahistories, 1949-2009." Theatre Journal, Vol. 64, no. 2 (May 2012): xx-xx. [forthcoming]

"I Was a Teenaged Fabulist: The dark play of Adolescent Sexuality in U.S. Drama." Modern Drama, Vol. 53, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 332-349. [link]

EDITED VOLUMES

• Guest Editor (with Henry Bial), Special Section - "As Seen On Television," Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Vol 24, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 91-168.

INVITED BOOK CHAPTERS
--

SHORT PIECES

Contributing Editor, POINTS - The Official Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society (2011).

Essay - "Go Ask Alice: Forty Years Later"
Film Review - "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (Garbus, 2011): What Medicine, Morality and Documentary Can't Explain"
Commentary - "A POINTS Guide to the 83rd Academy Awards"
Commentary - "RehabTV?"

"How Harvey Milk Recruited Me," The Gay and Lesbian Review (March-April 2009): 24. [pdf]

"Acting with My Hair" in Hair Pieces, Cary Tennis, ed. (San Francisco: Cary Tennis Books, 2009): 25-29. [pdf]

PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

Contributing Reviewer, Talkin' Broadway (Regional-Albuquerque), 2010- .

BOOK REVIEWS
Theatre Journal
• Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Stagings of Zora Neale Hurston by Anthea Kraut. Vol. 62, no. 2 (May 2010): 322-23. [link]
• Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, Second Edition by Philip Auslander. Vol. 61, no. 4 (December 2009): 653-54. [link]

Ecumenica
• The Viagra Ad Venture: Masculinity, Media, and the Performance of Sexual Health by Jay Baglia. Vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 101-103.

Comparative Drama
• Contemporary Latina/o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity by Jon D. Rossini. Vol. 43, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 276-278. [link]

ENTRIES IN REFERENCE BOOKS
"Ethnic Drag" in Performance Studies: Routledge Key Concepts Studies, Gabrielle Cody, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2010): approved/forthcoming.

“First Novel about Coming Out to Parents Is Published” & “Second March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights” in Great Events from History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Events, 1846-2006, Lillian Faderman & Yolanda Retter, eds. (Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2006): 285-85, 469-71.

PEER REVIEW

• Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies (2011)
• Theatre Journal (2009)
• Women and Performance (2005)

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT
All courses offered through UNM's Department of Theatre & Dance, unless otherwise noted.

Theatre History I: Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (2009, 2010, 2011)
Sex on Stage: Topics/Theories of the Theatre (2008, 2011)
Theatre History II: Eighteenth Century to the Present (2010, 2011)
Theatre History I: Non-Western & Pre-Modern (2005, 2007)
Theatre History II: Renaissance to Realism (2006, 2008)
21st Century U.S. Drama: Topics in Theatre History/Criticism (2009)
Performing Latinidad: Topics in Theatre History/Criticism (2007)
Comedy: Theories of the Theatre (2009)
Dangerous Theatre: Theories of the Theatre (2007)
Theories of the Theatre (2006)
Analytical and Argumentative Writing (English Language & Literature/UNM: 2005)
Composition (Humanities/SIPI: 2004, 2005)
The Actor in U.S. Cultural History (Theatre, Speech & Dance/Brown: 2003)
Race & Ethnicity in 20th Century U.S. Popular Performance (Theatre, Speech & Dance/Brown: 2003)
Race & Ethnicity in 20th Century U.S. Popular Performance (American Studies/Yale: 2002)
Introduction to Gender Studies (American Studies/UNM: 1998)

GRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT
All courses offered through UNM's Department of Theatre & Dance, unless otherwise noted.

Introduction to Graduate Studies (2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011)
Performance in Everyday Life: Critical Issues in the Arts (2011)
Advanced Research Methods (2008, 2009, 2010)
Performance Theory (2006, 2008, 2010)
Comedy: Critical Issues in the Arts (2009)
Sex on Stage: Critical Issues in the Arts (2008)
Dangerous Theatre: Critical Issues in the Arts (2007)

PRESENTATIONS - Academic Conferences

2010

“Corporeality TV.” Co-convener of Working Session: "Televisuality and Embodiment." American Society of Theatre Research, Seattle, November 2010.
“Racial Casting and the Rhetorics of Civil Rights” (in absentia), American Studies Association, San Antonio, November 2010.
“Imagine Their Surprise: The Enduring Influence of Lesbian Feminism within Gay Male Cultural Politics in the 1980s and 1990s.” Lesbian Lives in the 1970s Conference, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies/CUNY, New York City, October 2010.
“The Rhetorics of Racial Casting.” Convener of Seminar: “Racial Casting: Enacting Race Across Media.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Los Angeles, August 2010.
“Stealth Latinos,” Performance Studies Focus Group Pre-Conference, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Los Angeles, August 2010.

2009

“The Theatrics of Television’s Digital Transition.” Co-convener of Working Session: "Digital Destinations." American Society of Theatre Research, San Juan, PR, November 2009.
"Notes on West Side Story - 2009," Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2009.
"Allegations of (In)Authenticity: Compiling West Side Story's Para-Histories," Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2009.
“Dark Play: The Intimate Racial Drama of Queer Masculinity,” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 2009.

2008

"Casting, Latinos and Oscar: Evincing a Racial History of the Academy Awards," American Society of Theatre Research, Boston, MA, November 2008.
“The Double Consciousness Dramas of Dolores Prida and Carlos Morton,” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 2008.
“Translating Raquel,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, March 2008.

2007

“‘My Name Is James Frey and I’m uh...”: Truth, Lies and Performative Autobiography,” American Society of Theatre Research, Phoenix, AZ, November 2007.
"Performative Autobiography and Transnational Sobriety in Ignacio Solares' Delerium Tremens," American Studies Association, Philadelphia, PA, October 2007.
“Metaphysical Realism: Performing Addiction in Latina/o Drama,” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 2007.

2006 & prior

“Not About Stereotypes,” American Society of Theatre Research, Chicago, IL, November 2006.
“From Desi to Fidel: The Cuban Romance Sours,” American Studies Association, Oakland, CA, October 2006.
“Stealth Latinos, or When Did Raquel Welch Become Hispanic,” Association of Theatre in Higher Education, Chicago, IL, August 2006.
“How The Sharks Became Puerto Rican: Racializing West Side Story,” Southwest/Texas Popular Culture & American Culture Associations Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, February 2005.
“War! The Musical?: Wartime, Entertainments, and the Legacies of WWII’s All-Soldier Musical Revues,” American Society for Theatre Research, Las Vegas, NV, November 2004.
“Becoming a Proper California Lady: Performances of Identity in Mission California, 1900-1930,” American Folklore Society, Salt Lake City, UT, October 2004.
“But What About Ricky?: The Perils of Maturity, Masculinity and Sexuality for the Post-Adolescent Child Star,” Regarding Michael Jackson Conference, Larry Kramer Initiative-Yale University, New Haven CT, September 2004.
“Latina/o Surrogations of the ‘Arabian’ in 1920s Stage and Screen Performance,” American Studies Association, Hartford, CT, October 2003.
“Tropical Travelogues: The Good Neighbor Policy on Stage and Screen, 1933-1947.” American Studies Association, Washington D.C., November 2001.
“The Romance of Ramona: A Performance Genealogy.” Past Performances Conference, Wesleyan Humanities Center, Wesleyan University, April 2001.
“The First ‘Miss California’: Ramona Pageants and the Romance of the American Southwest.” Modern Language Association, Washington D.C., December 2000.
“How the Sharks Became Puerto Rican: Bringing West Side Story to the Stage.” American Society for Theatre Research, New York, November 2000.
“Carlos Comes Out!” Pornography, Colonialism and the (Homo)Erotics of Latino Masculinity.” National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies, Mexico City, June 1998.
“Uncommissioned Designs: Spectatorial Innovation as Displayed in Campus Reaction/s to Luís Jimenez’s Fiesa/Jarabé.” Rocky Mountain American Studies Associaton, Albuquerque, April 1997.
“Monstrous Musical Conjurations: The Incantatory Logic of Vocal Androgyny.” Feminist Theory and Music 4 Conference, Charlottesville, June 1997.
“Fugitive Voices: The Visual Politics of Aural Sex.” Popular Culture Association, San Antonio, March 1997.

PRESENTATIONS - Featured Speaker, Keynote, Roundtable & Workshop

2010

Speaker, “A Brief History of Coming Out,” Faculty Brownbag Series, LGBTQ Resource Center, University of New Mexico, October 2010.
Featured Faculty Speaker, “Stealth Latinos and Latin Explosions,” Pre-Semester College Meeting, College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico, August 2010.

2009

Panelist, “Books in the Making: Exploring the Writer’s Creative Process,” The Association for Women in Communications (New Mexico Chapter), Albuquerque, NM, December 2009.
Panelist, “Teaching Latino & Latin American Drama,” Latino Focus Group Post Conference Round-Table, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2009.
Panelist, “Latinas/os and the Arts: Locating Latina/o Performance,” El Centro de la Raza Latina/o Faculty Brown Bag Speaker Series, Albuquerque, NM, April 2009.

2008

Commentator, “Race in American Dance,” American Studies Association, Albuquerque, NM, October 2008.
Panelist, “Hemispheric? Transnational? Diasporic?: Negotiating the Spaces of Latina/o American Theater – A Roundtable Discussion,” Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2008.
Keynote Address (“Dan Guerrero: Tending the Hybrid Histories of Chicana/o Popular Performance”), Faculty Reception for 2008 Distinguished Community Scholar Dan Guerrero, UCLA César E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, Los Angeles, CA. January 2008.

2007 & prior

Panelist, “ Presidential Symposium with Guillermo Gomez-Peña,” College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico, October 2007
Panelist, “Tawdry and Spectacular: Jacqueline Susann and Sex before the ‘Sexual Revolution,’” Sunday Symposium for Paper Doll, Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT, March 2003.
Featured Graduate Speaker, “Which ‘Latin Explosion’?: Commencing a History of Latinas/os in U.S. Popular Performance.” Edward Bouchet Speaker Series, Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, January 2001.
“Exotic Erotics of Latino Masculinity in U.S. Popular Culture.” University of New Mexico’s Raza Graduate Student Association and Center for Regional Studies’ Dolores Gonzales Colloquy Series, Albuquerque, April 1998.

NATIONAL AWARDS, HONORS & FELLOWSHIPS

Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, 2002-03.
John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library, 2001.
Howard Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders Research Grant, Yale University, 2001.
Research Fellowship, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 2000.
Latino Graduate Training Seminar in Qualitative Methodology, Center for Latino Initiatives, Smithsonian Institute, 1999.
Honorable Mention, Ford Foundation Minority Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 1998.
Directing Fellow, Director’s Project (Fall Production Program), DramaLeague of New York, 1990.

UNIVERSITY AWARDS, HONORS & FELLOWSHIPS

Outstanding Faculty Member Award (Teaching), The Project For New Mexico Graduates of Color, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2008-09.
College of Fine Arts Career Development Grant (2007-08; 2008-09; 2009-10).
Outstanding Faculty Member Award (General Recognition), The Project For New Mexico Graduates of Color, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2007-08.
Center for the Study of Race, Inequality & Politics Research Grant, Yale University, 2000.
Graduate Fellowship, University of New Mexico (highest competitive award of graduate support offered by Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), 1996-98.

SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION

Drama Division, Modern Language Association, 2011-2016.
Editorial Board, Theatre Survey, 2012-2014
Executive Committee, American Society for Theatre Research, 2011-2013.
2011 Conference Committee, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, 2010-2011.
Selection Committee for Debut Panel sponsored by the Latino Focus Group Debut Panel, Association Theatre in Higher Education, 2009.
Site Resource Committee, American Studies Association Conference, Albuquerque, NM, 2008.
Referee: Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies (2011), Theatre Journal (2009), Women and Performance (2005).

SERVICE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO

Planning Committee/Working Group (Co-Chair), Latina/o Literary Imagination Conference (University of New Mexico & Rutgers University, 2011), Core Committee Member, 2009-2011.
Feminist Research Institute Board, University of New Mexico, 2010-2012.
Women Studies Executive Board, University of New Mexico, 2010-2011.
Advisory Council/Task Force for the Formation of the LGBTQ Resource Center, UNM Office for Equity and Inclusion, 2010.
Session Leader, "College 101," ¡Adelante!: Celebrating 40 Years of El Centro de la Raza and Latina/o Serving Programs and Creating a Vision for UNM Latina/o Community for the Next 40 Years, October 2009.
Graduate Advisor - Theatre (Department of Theatre and Dance), Fall 2007-present.
Head of Theatre (Department of Theatre and Dance), Fall 2007-Fall 2008.

SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY

Member, Board of Directors, Blackout Theatre, Albuquerque, 2010-2012.
Selection Committee, Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (2008, 2009, 2010).
Schmooze Coordinator, Society for Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - New Mexico Chapter, 2010, 2011.
Selection Committee, 3rd Annual Pornotopia Independent Erotic Film Festival, 2009.

MEDIA/PRESS

"Herrera Brings Stages of History into Theater Present" - "Employee Spotlight" article in UNM Today, January 18 2011. [link/pdf]
"Beyond Apu: Why Are There So Many Indians on Television?" - article on Slate.com, 9 June 2010. Contributions to same highlighted in "Breaking the Type Caste" on AndrewSullivan.com, 10 June 2010."
ACT - Albuquerque Community Theatre" - featured guest on locally produced television program broadcast on Encantado TV, 6 July 2009.
"Can Nouveau Riche Buy Avant-Garde" - article about production of Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde, The Albuquerque Journal, 5 July 2009.
"If You Knew Michael Like We Know Michael" - article in The New York Times, 24 October 2004.

CREATIVE ACTIVITY

I Was the Voice of Democracy (Solo Show) - Writer/Performer (SoloFest 2010, The Filling Station, Albuquerque, July 2010. Premiere. SUBSEQUENT PRESENTATIONS: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 2012; Revolutions International Theatre Festival, Albuquerque, January 2012; Dixon Place Lounge, New York City, December 2011; University of Kansas, Lawrence, October 2011; ATHE LGBQ Pre-Conference (Keynote Performance), Chicago, August 2011; KUNM Radio Theatre, Albuquerque, June 2011; UCLA, Los Angeles, February 2011; The Kosmos, Albuquerque, February 2011; Annex Theatre, Seattle, November 2010; Metta Theatre, Taos, August 2010.)
The Encyclopedia Show ABQ - Contributing Writer/Performer ("The Future" - August 2011; "Color" - April 2011; "Moon" - February 2011; "Bears" - December 2010.)
"Pieces of CAKE by Witter Bynner" (Staged Reading) – Director/Adapter (University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, February 2011.)
Before We Say Goodbye (Independent Feature Film) - Actor (Paul Davids, Director; Yellow Hat Productions, USA/Mexico, 2010.)
Gender Fabulous (Short Film Program) – Curator (8th Annual Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Albuquerque, October 2010 [link]; 7th Annual Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Albuquerque, October 2009. [link])
Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde by Charles Ludlam (Theatre Production) – Director (Blackout Theatre @ The Box, Albuquerque, July 2009)
The Medea Complex by Patricia Crespin (Staged Reading) – Director (National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, November 2007.)

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

American Studies Association
American Society for Theatre Research
Association for Theatre in Higher Education
Organization of American Historians
Modern Language Association
National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Alcohol and Drugs History Society
Assembly on Literature for Adolescents
Society of Children's Book & Illustrators
Southwest Writers

LIST OF REFERENCES PROVIDED UPON REQUEST

WORKSHOPS

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 05:07:00 +0000

Please contact Brian Herrera to discuss bringing any of these workshops to your writer's group, school, or community organization.

Die, Vampire, Die!: Vanquish the Anguish of Academic Writing
This interactive workshop engages the myriad ways that emotions (especially fear, pride and anxiety) inform the compositional work of the academic writer. Workshop participants will rehearse a repertoire of simple creative writing techniques, exploring how such tools might be productively applied to the process (and pitfalls) of academic writing. Likely topics include the panic of the blank page; the perils of jargon; the challenge of sustaining momentum; and encountering crises of authorial confidence. This two-hour workshop session limited to 20 participants in seminar setting. A one-hour version of the workshop can accommodate up to 100 participants in classroom or lecture hall setting. All participants should bring pen and paper; no computers permitted.
OFFERED at the invitation of UNM-Mellon Fellows Program; UNM Graduate Professional Student Association; University of Kansas Theatre Department.

How to Tell on Yourself: Strategies for Autobiographical Storytelling
Every life delivers a story (or three) worth telling well. This interactive workshop rehearses several simple techniques designed to develop the necessary (yet appropriate) dramatic structure for the often "raw" material drawn from our own lived experience. A series of brief writing exercises will guide each participant, first, to discern a generative starting point for their story; next, to clarify an apt point of view for that story; and, finally, to evince a genuine urgency for its telling. This two-hour workshop session limited to 15-20 participants in seminar or studio setting. A one-hour version of the workshop can accommodate up to 100 participants in classroom or lecture hall setting. All participants should bring pen and paper; no computers permitted.
OFFERED at the invitation of UCLA Office of Residential Life; University of Kansas Theatre Department.

The Art of the Pitch, or Exercises in Speed-Pitching
Whether you're a newbie or a veteran writer, delivering a "pitch" – that essential, quick, and captivating summary of one's project – is an indispensable skill. In this lively and interactive workshop session, participants are first guided through a structured (and often hilarious) exercise in "speed-pitching" before engaging in a group discussion addressing the necessary components of a good pitch and how crafting a pitch can help in the writing, revision and promotion of a project. This 75- or 90-minute workshop session requires chairs to be arranged in two concentric circles, with the inner circle chairs facing outward while the outer circle chairs face inward. (Alternately, chairs can be arranged in facing rows.) Workshop can accommodate as many participants as the chair configuration permits.
OFFERED at the invitation of New Mexico and Utah chapters of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Academic Performance
This performance workshop is designed specifically for early career academics encountering some measure of "stage fright" or "performance anxiety" around essential academic performances like job talks, conference presentations, and thesis/dissertation/exam defenses. After introducing several simple techniques borrowed from actor and voice training, this workshop rehearses how such performance techniques might also be applicable to high-pressure moments of academic performance. All workshop participants should plan to wear comfortable clothes and shoes, and should bring a single 1000-word excerpt (hard-copy) from a recent sample of their own academic writing for use during the workshop. This two-hour workshop session is limited to 15-20 participants in a studio setting; a one-hour lecture version of the workshop can accommodate up to 100 participants in classroom or lecture hall setting.
OFFERED at the invitation of the UNM-Mellon Fellows Program and The Robert Wood Johnson Center for Health Policy (UNM).

Seeking Balance in Academic Life
This workshop is designed specifically for early career academics interested in developing strategies for long-term health and happiness within an academic degree program, during the job search, along the tenure track and beyond. Introducing simple journaling and time management strategies, this workshop rehearses techniques for sustaining sound writing strategies, maintaining simultaneous projects, and cultivating sensible work habits. This workshop especially suited for artist-scholars, but is equally accessible to all. This two-hour workshop session is designed for 15-20 participants in a seminar setting; a one-hour lecture version of the workshop can accommodate up to 100 participants.
OFFERED at the invitation of the Arizona Association for Theatre Scholarship and Service (Arizona State University).

PRESS

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:05:00 +0000

MEDIA/PRESS

"Herrera Brings Stages of History into Theater Present" - "Employee Spotlight" article in UNM Today, January 18 2011. [link/pdf]

"Beyond Apu: Why Are There So Many Indians on Television?" - article on Slate.com, 9 June 2010.

Contributions to same highlighted in "Breaking the Type Caste" on AndrewSullivan.com, 10 June 2010.

"ACT - Albuquerque Community Theatre" - featured guest on locally produced television program broadcast on Encantado TV, 6 July 2009.

"Can Nouveau Riche Buy Avant-Garde" - article about production of Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde, The Albuquerque Journal, 5 July 2009.

"If You Knew Michael Like We Know Michael" - article in The New York Times, 24 October 2004.

TEACHING

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:44:00 +0000

RECOGNITION

“Best Post-Secondary School Professor or Instructor” in annual “Best of Burque” Readers Poll, Weekly Alibi, Albuquerque NM, April 2010.

Outstanding Faculty Member Award (Teaching), The Project For New Mexico Graduates of Color, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2008-09.

Outstanding Faculty Member Award (General Recognition), The Project For New Mexico Graduates of Color, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2007-08; 2010-2011.

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT
All courses offered through UNM's Department of Theatre & Dance, unless otherwise noted.

Theatre History I: Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (2009, 2010, 2011)
Theatre History II: Eighteenth Century to the Present (2010, 2011)
Sex on Stage: Theories of the Theatre/Topics in Theatre History/Crit (2008, 2011)
21st Century U.S. Drama: Topics in Theatre History/Criticism (2009)
Comedy: Theories of the Theatre (2009)
Theatre History I: Non-Western & Pre-Modern (2005, 2007)
Theatre History II: Renaissance to Realism (2006, 2008)
Dangerous Theatre: Theories of the Theatre (2007)
Performing Latinidad: Topics in Theatre History/Criticism (2007)
Theories of the Theatre (2006)
Analytical and Argumentative Writing (English Language & Literature: 2005)
Composition (Humanities/Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute: 2004, 2005)
The Actor in U.S. Cultural History (Theatre, Speech & Dance/Brown: 2003)
Race & Ethnicity in 20th Century U.S. Popular Performance (Theatre, Speech & Dance/Brown: 2003)
Race & Ethnicity in 20th Century U.S. Popular Performance (American Studies/Yale: 2002)
Introduction to Gender Studies (American Studies/UNM: 1998)

GRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT
All courses offered through UNM's Department of Theatre & Dance, unless otherwise noted.

Introduction to Graduate Studies (2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011)
Everyday Performance: Critical Issues in the Arts (2011)
Advanced Research Methods (2008, 2009, 2010)
Performance Theory (2006, 2008, 2010)
Comedy: Critical Issues in the Arts (2009)
Sex on Stage: Critical Issues in the Arts (2008)
Dangerous Theatre: Critical Issues in the Arts (2007)

WEB PUBLICATIONS: Table of Contents

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 06:34:00 +0000

CLICK DATE TO BE ROUTED TO SPECIFIC REVIEW/ARTICLE/ESSAY

9.23.11: Essay - "Go Ask Alice: Forty Years Later" [@POINTS]
8.26.11: Performance Review - "God of Carnage - August 2011" [@Talkin' Broadway]
7.27.11: Film Review - "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (Garbus, 2011): What Medicine, Morality and Documentary Can't Explain" [@POINTS]
7.14.11: Performance Review - "SoloFest 2011 - July 2011" [@Talkin' Broadway]
7.6.11: Performance Review - "Shakespeare on the Rail - July 2011" [@Talkin' Broadway]
4.5.11: Performance Review - "The Last Five Years - April 2011" [@Talkin' Broadway]
2.25.11: Essay - "POINTS Guide to the 83rd Academy Awards" [@POINTS]
2.8.11: Essay - "RehabTV?" [@POINTS]
12.2.10: Performance Review - "Raised by Humans - November 2010" [@Talkin' Broadway]
11.17.10: Performance Review - "Bless Me, Ultima - November 2010" [@Talkin' Broadway]
11.06.10: Performance Review - "Happy Days - November 2010" [@Talkin' Broadway]
10.15.10: Film Review - "Validation (d. Ewen Wright, 2010)" [@DukeCityFix]
08.24.10: Performance Review - "Trust - August 2010" [@Talkin' Broadway]
07.07.10: Performance Review - "The Dolls present Auntie Mame - July 2010" [@Talkin' Broadway]
03.22.10: Book Review - "The University of New Mexico (UNM Press, 2010)" [@DukeCityFix]
12.09.09: Invited Remarks - "I Chose to Write'” [@Women in Communication-NM Chapter]
07.01.09: Editorial - "'Educational Values' versus 'Educational Value'” [@BullyBloggers]
01.16.09: Essay - "The Perils of Masculine Intimacy in Bad Influence (1990)" [@FilmOfTheMonthClub]
05.21.08: Essay - "Okuzaki's Shtick" [@FilmOfTheMonthClub]
01.30.08: Keynote Address - "Dan Guerrero: Tending the Hybrid Histories of Chicana/o Popular Performance" [@UCLA]

* * * * * *

PLEASE DO NOT REPRINT OR DISTRIBUTE
ANY OF THE LINKED ARTICLESWITHOUT CITATION AND/OR
EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF AUTHOR.
All Rights Reserved.

PRESENTATIONS

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:49:00 +0000

PRESENTATIONS - Academic Conferences

2010

“Corporeality TV.” Co-convener of Working Session: "Televisuality and Embodiment." American Society of Theatre Research, Seattle, November 2010.
“Racial Casting and the Rhetorics of Civil Rights” (in absentia), American Studies Association, San Antonio, November 2010.
“Imagine Their Surprise: The Enduring Influence of Lesbian Feminism within Gay Male Cultural Politics in the 1980s and 1990s.” Lesbian Lives in the 1970s Conference, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies/CUNY, New York City, October 2010.
“The Rhetorics of Racial Casting.” Convener of Seminar: “Racial Casting: Enacting Race Across Media.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Los Angeles, August 2010.
“Stealth Latinos,” Performance Studies Focus Group Pre-Conference, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Los Angeles, August 2010.

2009

“The Theatrics of Television’s Digital Transition.” Co-convener of Working Session: "Digital Destinations." American Society of Theatre Research, San Juan, PR, November 2009.
"Notes on West Side Story - 2009," Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2009.
"Allegations of (In)Authenticity: Compiling West Side Story's Para-Histories," Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2009.
“Dark Play: The Intimate Racial Drama of Queer Masculinity,” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 2009.

2008

"Casting, Latinos and Oscar: Evincing a Racial History of the Academy Awards," American Society of Theatre Research, Boston, MA, November 2008.
“The Double Consciousness Dramas of Dolores Prida and Carlos Morton,” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 2008.
“Translating Raquel,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, March 2008.

2007

“‘My Name Is James Frey and I’m uh...”: Truth, Lies and Performative Autobiography,” American Society of Theatre Research, Phoenix, AZ, November 2007.
"Performative Autobiography and Transnational Sobriety in Ignacio Solares' Delerium Tremens," American Studies Association, Philadelphia, PA, October 2007.
“Metaphysical Realism: Performing Addiction in Latina/o Drama,” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 2007.

2006 & prior

“Not About Stereotypes,” American Society of Theatre Research, Chicago, IL, November 2006.
“From Desi to Fidel: The Cuban Romance Sours,” American Studies Association, Oakland, CA, October 2006.
“Stealth Latinos, or When Did Raquel Welch Become Hispanic,” Association of Theatre in Higher Education, Chicago, IL, August 2006.
“How The Sharks Became Puerto Rican: Racializing West Side Story,” Southwest/Texas Popular Culture & American Culture Associations Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, February 2005.
“War! The Musical?: Wartime, Entertainments, and the Legacies of WWII’s All-Soldier Musical Revues,” American Society for Theatre Research, Las Vegas, NV, November 2004.
“Becoming a Proper California Lady: Performances of Identity in Mission California, 1900-1930,” American Folklore Society, Salt Lake City, UT, October 2004.
“But What About Ricky?: The Perils of Maturity, Masculinity and Sexuality for the Post-Adolescent Child Star,” Regarding Michael Jackson Conference, Larry Kramer Initiative-Yale University, New Haven CT, September 2004.
“Latina/o Surrogations of the ‘Arabian’ in 1920s Stage and Screen Performance,” American Studies Association, Hartford, CT, October 2003.
“Tropical Travelogues: The Good Neighbor Policy on Stage and Screen, 1933-1947.” American Studies Association, Washington D.C., November 2001.
“The Romance of Ramona: A Performance Genealogy.” Past Performances Conference, Wesleyan Humanities Center, Wesleyan University, April 2001.
“The First ‘Miss California’: Ramona Pageants and the Romance of the American Southwest.” Modern Language Association, Washington D.C., December 2000.
“How the Sharks Became Puerto Rican: Bringing West Side Story to the Stage.” American Society for Theatre Research, New York, November 2000.
“Carlos Comes Out!” Pornography, Colonialism and the (Homo)Erotics of Latino Masculinity.” National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies, Mexico City, June 1998.
“Uncommissioned Designs: Spectatorial Innovation as Displayed in Campus Reaction/s to Luís Jimenez’s Fiesa/Jarabé.” Rocky Mountain American Studies Associaton, Albuquerque, April 1997.
“Monstrous Musical Conjurations: The Incantatory Logic of Vocal Androgyny.” Feminist Theory and Music 4 Conference, Charlottesville, June 1997.
“Fugitive Voices: The Visual Politics of Aural Sex.” Popular Culture Association, San Antonio, March 1997.

PRESENTATIONS - Featured Speaker, Keynote & Roundtable

2010

Speaker, “A Brief History of Coming Out,” Faculty Brownbag Series, LGBTQ Resource Center, University of New Mexico, October 2010.
Featured Faculty Speaker, “Stealth Latinos and Latin Explosions,” Pre-Semester College Meeting, College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico, August 2010.

2009

Panelist, “Books in the Making: Exploring the Writer’s Creative Process,” The Association for Women in Communications (New Mexico Chapter), Albuquerque, NM, December 2009.
Panelist, “Teaching Latino & Latin American Drama,” Latino Focus Group Post Conference Round-Table, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2009.
Panelist, “Latinas/os and the Arts: Locating Latina/o Performance,” El Centro de la Raza Latina/o Faculty Brown Bag Speaker Series, Albuquerque, NM, April 2009.

2008

Commentator, “Race in American Dance,” American Studies Association, Albuquerque, NM, October 2008.
Panelist, “Hemispheric? Transnational? Diasporic?: Negotiating the Spaces of Latina/o American Theater – A Roundtable Discussion,” Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York City, August 2008.
Keynote Address (“Dan Guerrero: Tending the Hybrid Histories of Chicana/o Popular Performance”), Faculty Reception for 2008 Distinguished Community Scholar Dan Guerrero, UCLA César E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, Los Angeles, CA. January 2008.

2007 & prior

Panelist, “ Presidential Symposium with Guillermo Gomez-Peña,” College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico, October 2007
Panelist, “Tawdry and Spectacular: Jacqueline Susann and Sex before the ‘Sexual Revolution,’” Sunday Symposium for Paper Doll, Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT, March 2003.
Featured Graduate Speaker, “Which ‘Latin Explosion’?: Commencing a History of Latinas/os in U.S. Popular Performance.” Edward Bouchet Speaker Series, Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, January 2001.
“Exotic Erotics of Latino Masculinity in U.S. Popular Culture.” University of New Mexico’s Raza Graduate Student Association and Center for Regional Studies’ Dolores Gonzales Colloquy Series, Albuquerque, April 1998.

Brian Herrera - Performance Review: "The Dolls present Auntie Mame" - July 2010

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:57:00 +0000

PLEASE DO NOT REPRINT OR DISTRIBUTE
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF AUTHOR.
All Rights Reserved.

* * * * * *

Performance Review of

The Dolls present Auntie Mame
Posted originally to Talkin' Broadway (Regional News & Reviews).

One of Albuquerque's most tireless independent theatre troupes also happens to be its most glamorous. Founded in 1997 by Matthew Bubb (aka Geneva Convention) and Kenneth Ansloan (aka Tequila Mockingbyrd), The Dolls have each year presented no fewer than four or five imaginative movie spoofs, elaborate holiday extravaganzas, and drag interpretations of American chestnuts like The Women and The Bad Seed at theatres and nightclubs throughout Albuquerque. In little more than a decade, the company's tagline ("The Dolls presents") has come to signal a sequined mix of loving homage, broad parody, and what they coyly term "Dolls liberties," referring to the assorted ribald asides, riffs and one-liners that earn every Dolls production its "for mature audiences" warning. Such embellishments are on often delightful display this July as The Dolls present Auntie Mame, the now familiar tale of a young boy raised by his eccentric aunt, at the historic Albuquerque Little Theatre.

Even without The Dolls's "liberties," Auntie Mame is a scene-stealer's delight, with ample opportunity for such thievery by principal and bit player alike. In this cast of nineteen, eight performers play single characters, while the other eleven split the remaining twenty-three listed roles. And, elaborately outfitted in Susan Ricker's costumes, all do their best to steal the show. It is testament, then, to Bradd Howard's direction that an infectious spirit of collaborative camaraderie inspires the audience's palpable delight in this ensemble's performance (a feeling of goodwill that buoyed the show through the laborious scene changes and myriad scenery malfunctions that beset John van der Meer's set on opening night).

Double casting also amplifies each performer's especial contributions to the show. Seymour Johnson (local drag king and co- founder of the Albuquerque Kings Club) demonstrates a wry innocence as the younger Patrick, ably anchoring the show's emotional through-line for its first half (before taking on the same-but-different part of Michael in the last scene). Adam Kidd deftly essays three bit parts before intermission (after which he shines in the role of Patrick as a young man). A.J. Carian (who also plays Pegeen Ryan in the play's later scenes) schemes salaciously as southern belle Sally Cato, and Jim Johns's powerful bluster is put to effective (and often startling) use in the very different roles of Mother Burnside and Claude Upson. Jay Kincheloe, Chastity Belt-Off, Mauro Montoya, Brigitte Bellsong, Jason Dorrenbacher and Joshua Ball also take on multiple roles in the production.

In the role of acid-tongued, gin-soaked actress Vera Charles, Patrick Ross jolts every scene with clarity, precision and impeccable timing. (Mame's disastrous New Haven debut becomes one of the production's most captivating sequences largely because of Ross's ability to get laughs even with his back turned.) As Mame's naïve secretary Miss Agnes Gooch, Adan Branchal is a winning, comedic presence throughout, appearing first as a dumpy frump, then morphing into a curvy glamazon, before plumply transforming again in a hot pink yoga costume. Even Gabe Torres (in the thankless role of Mame's Asian manservant Ito) grabs his share of giggles, as do Thax von Reither, Brian Fejer and Jaime Pardo as Mame's closer collaborators. But, without a doubt, the production's most delightful scenes are stolen by Joe Moncada in the role of Norah Muldoonez. Reinventing the script's dowdy Irish housekeeper as a regal Mexican matron (who speaks with an accent as thickly comical as Charo's), Moncada's Norah gooses the hilarity of every scene while always maintaining the character's warmth and stolidity. Moncada's irreverent yet generous performance is a revelation, and reason enough to see the show.

Yet no matter how many hidden gems one might find among the supporting players, the success of any Auntie Mame depends upon the performance at the center of its crown. Here, as Mame, is Kenneth Ansloan—best known as Dolls co-founder Tequila Mockingbyrd, who assumed sole artistic leadership of the company upon Bubb's untimely death in 2007. In the demanding title role, Ansloan delivers a charismatic performance that is equal parts grit, gumption and glamour. Gliding through no less than sixteen top-to-bottom costume changes (involving gowns and caftans galore, in addition to at least four wigs, a feathered headdress and an enormous silver turban), Ansloan's Mame works both as a drag homage to Rosalind Russell and as a giddy concoction all Ansloan's own. To be sure, the character's more vulnerable aspects appeared only fleetingly on opening night. Nevertheless, when Ansloan arrives onstage for the play's climactic scene wearing a show-stopping glittering golden gown and ready to vanquish the loathsome Upson clan, the whole of The Dolls's presentation of Auntie Mame comes together with heart-stirring humor as Ansloan conveys the transcendent fierceness of Mame's love for her beloved Patrick.

Auntie Mame by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, presented by The Dolls and directed by Bradd Howard, runs July 2-11, 2010, at the historic Albuquerque Little Theatre, 224 San Pasquale SW, just south of Old Town. Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm. $15 general admission. For reservations call 505-242-4750 or visit www.albuquerquelittletheatre.org.

-- Brian Eugenio Herrera

Brian Herrera - "Best of Burque 2010" - Best Post-Secondary School Professor or Instructor

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:45:00 +0000

Best of Burque, the Alibi’s user-generated guide to Albuquerque!

"For 15 years, we’ve asked our readers to tell us what makes this city tick. Culture, entertainment, shopping and politics are just a few of the topics on the BoB ballot, posted online at alibi.com during the voting window each spring. The results—what you’re holding in your hands right now—are the final tally. And this year, readers responded in record numbers: Just shy of 45,000 votes poured in for BoB’s sweet 16th issue. So when you see a Best of Burque winner, know there was a mountain of votes that had to be scaled to get there. Winning this is quite a feat."

Weekly Alibi - April 2010 - Albuquerque, NM

Brian Herrera - Book Review: THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO (2010) by Robert Reck, V.B. Price and Van Dorn Hooker

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:32:00 +0000

PLEASE DO NOT REPRINT OR DISTRIBUTE
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF AUTHOR.
All Rights Reserved.

* * * * * *

Invited Book Review of THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO (UNM Press, 20100.

Posted originally to DukeCityFix .

With this “photographic portrait of the University of New Mexico,” the folks at UNM Press bring together three of the university’s most devoted chroniclers to capture the complexity of the campus’s architectural landscape. Author V.B. Price’s exultant introduction offers an idiosyncratic yet informative summary history of the university itself, and former university architect Van Dorn Hooker lends his authoritative imprimatur as the book’s credited “producer.” But, without question, the nearly one hundred images from the lens of acclaimed Albuquerque-based photographer Robert Reck provide the real reason to pick up this book. (A widely published and internationally recognized Architectural and Interior Design photographer, Reck is a contributing photographer to Architectural Digest and served as the lead photographer for the now notorious 1987 book, Santa Fe Style, which UNM Professor Marta Weigle claimed “canonized and popularized” the contemporary notion of Southwestern décor for a global market.)

In The University of New Mexico, Robert Reck’s images amplify the dimensions of UNM’s architectural landscapes in uncommon, captivating ways. Reck's photography discerns the distinctive beauty of his architectural subjects at both the most grand and intimate of scale. On the one hand, Reck ably highlights the simple, holistic beauty of two of UNM’s newest, most visible and most commented-upon buildings (the UNM Hospital and the new George Pearl Hall). On the other, Reck’s camera deftly captures some of the most emblematic architectural “experiences” offered by UNM’s campus – what it’s like to walk through “The Center of the Universe,” or sit by the duck pond, or be on the inside of the College of Education’s multicolored glass wall – while also suggesting new ones. (My own casual stroll down the staircase at the center of the SUB has likely been forever transformed by Robert Reck’s breathtaking photograph from its top landing.) To be sure, Reck’s photographs are perhaps most luminous when unpeopled, but every image collected in this volume confirms Reck’s reputation as a master of composition and light.

Perhaps inevitably, though, any book proclaiming itself a “photographic portrait” of a place, space, and institution central – at least briefly – within the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans opens itself to easy critiques of what’s not included in its pages. And as one of those New Mexicans, I was struck by some of the omissions. As I turned the pages, I wanted to see what Reck’s camera might show me about the notorious “skirt” of Ortega Hall. Or the angular tumble that is the Humanities building. Or fraternity row’s architectural hodge-podge. And while the numerous images of the newer medical buildings along the northerly stretch of University Boulevard are interesting, the relative absence of – say – the Center for the Arts, Johnson Center, or Centennial Library from this “portrait” is conspicuous (especially when a full page is devoted to a pretty picture of a trumpet blossom). The lack of a discernible organizing principle helps little to rationalize such editorial decisions, and the absence of archival details (like dates of construction or the architect’s name) limit this volume’s utility as a reference text.

Yet The University of New Mexico remains a beautiful book, replete with extraordinary images from one of the Duke City’s most noted photographers. Leafing through it will almost certainly inspire anyone who knows UNM to reflect upon their own favorite campus spaces and places – and possibly give inspiration to pick up a camera and compose their own “photographic portrait of the University of New Mexico.”

The University of New Mexico
By Robert Reck (Photographer), V.B. Price (Author) and Van Dorn Hooker (Producer).
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010.
128 pages, 94 color photographs. $34.95 hardcover.
UNM Press • Amazon • Bookworks

Brian Herrera - "'I Chose To Write"

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:37:00 +0000

"I Chose to Write"

Invited remarks delivered as part of the panel "Books in the Making" at the December 2009 meeting of the New Mexico Chapter of The Association of Women in Communications. The Luncheon took place on December 9, 2009, at the Hotel Old Town in Albuquerque, NM.

Four hundred and forty four days ago I wrote my first word of fiction. It was the day after my fortieth birthday, a handful of days before I would officially submit my Ph.D. dissertation, and – as a somewhat lavish gift to myself – I was in the middle of my first writer’s retreat (at a glorious spot overlooking Tomales Bay in Northern California).

The retreat was my way of consciously honoring both my birthday and my completion of the dissertation – my way to “treat myself” – in both idiomatic senses of that phrase – to “treat myself” as a writer, and also to honor the healing I had effected in within my writing life over the previous handful of years. I felt I was beginning, aptly enough, a new chapter in my life as a writer, and the choice to go on this retreat felt like an apt way to celebrate this more healthful, more joyful way of writing.

Because – you should know – my writing life during much of the previous decade had not been so healthy or so happy.

For most of my adult life, I wrote because I had to. I wrote because it was a job requirement. I wrote because books and essays are the currency of my chosen profession. I wrote to impress or convince or cajole. I had become accustomed to writing from what I now call “a toxic well of ego" and, as a result, writing had become a "bad task," something I did only so that it would be over, or so that I could "get over." And, perhaps unsurprisingly, somewhere in there, I had just stopped writing.

I hit a kind of bottom around my use of writing as a toxic task sometime around 2005. I wasn’t writing really at all and the thought of opening a blank Word document filled me with something like panic. I faced a terrifying choice: stop writing and start a new career OR find a different way to write, because the way I knew just wasn’t working.

I am grateful today to be able to say that I chose to write. And, in the years between then and now, I rebuilt my writing self from the ground up – with the help of a writing group, a coach, a very patient dissertation advisor, and a blog (my blog, StinkyLulu.com which gave me two life-saving gifts: a rigorous routine and a sustaining community of generous readers). Somewhere along the way, I finished the book-length manuscript that had been looming over me for nearly a decade. And, today, as I think back over these last couple years, especially the last four hundred and forty four days, I see that I truly have entered a new phase in my writing life.

For, today, I write for process, not for product. I write as a discipline and as a practice of self-care. I avoid "binge writing" and other compulsive patterns as best I can. I do my darnedest to eschew the temptation to write so I sound good, clever or smarter than thou. I try to write in service to my stories and to my readers. I opt to share my work rather than to hoard and to hide it. I do my part to contribute to and to sustain on-line and “real life” writing communities. And as do, I write academic history for my job; I write cultural criticism about popular film and television for my blog; and I write stories – long ones and short ones – for kids and young adults for no good reason except that such stories keep popping up, demanding to be told. But, mostly, I just try to write – as often and as enthusiastically as I possibly can.

And, so far, I am enjoying this new chapter of my writing life – a lot – and I can’t wait to see how it turns out…

Brian Herrera - CONTACT

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:31:00 +0000

BRIAN EUGENIO HERRERA

Contact Information:

SNAIL MAIL:
Department of Theatre and Dance
MSC04 2570
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

PHONE:
505-277-4332 (leave message)
or email to arrange phone appointment

EMAIL:
herrerab@unm.edu
brianherrera@me.com

WEB:
http://www.brianherrera.org/

SOCIAL NETWORKS:
facebook
academia.edu

Brian Herrera - "JUST WRITE"

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:50:00 +0000

ABOUT "JUST WRITE"...

The "Just-Write" list is an independent, ongoing project of Brian Herrera. Each week or so, Brian Herrera compiles the "Just-Write" e-newsletter, which lists an array of writing opportunities (contest, calls for submissions, etc) of potential interest to emerging professional writers. Some of these opportunities involve fees; some involve pay or cash prizes. Some promise web-publication; some promise print publication. Some just seem promising. Brian Herrera offer no guarantees about these opportunities. Only that they appear legit upon first glance, and that they seem potentially interesting to the array of (mostly) NM-based writers, Dramatic Writers, Memoirists and/or All-Around Scribblers who comprise the distribution list. The "Just-Write" List also includes announcements of the publication and/or presentation of works by "Just-Write" subscribers. The "Just-Write" list is a closed, private subscription list, which Brian Herrera does not sell or loan to anyone, and each week's mailing is distributed exclusively to "Just-Write" subscribers. A subscription to the "Just-Write" is available free of charge and can be stopped at any time by by sending an email to this address.

Brian Herrera - PHOTOS

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:58:00 +0000

All photos copyright Kip Malone.

click to enlarge

Brian Herrera - "'Educational Values' versus 'Educational Value'”

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:31:00 +0000

"'Educational Values' versus 'Educational Value'”

Posted originally to BullyBloggers.

Mark Taylor’s call to “End the University as We Know It” proved most disappointing for its shockingly naïve (or cruelly disingenuous) echo of a previous higher education manifesto published several years prior: the notorious “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education,” authored by The Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Commonly referred to as the “Spellings Report” in deference to then-Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, the 2006 study was an unlikely yet cogent harbinger of Taylor’s remarks last month.

The report expressed a belief that “change is overdue” in the realm of post-secondary education where “students increasingly care little about the distinctions that sometimes preoccupy the academic establishment” and where “this consumer-driven” landscape “demands innovation and flexibility from the institutions that serve the nation’s learners.”

A year ago in The Nation, Patricia C. Williams critiqued “the hyper-econometric model” that provided the foundation of the Spellings commission’s vision of higher education reform. Williams excoriated the report for its singular focus upon student knowledge as a commodity measurable by standards of efficiency and accountability “on a ‘value-added’ basis.” She concluded, “Framing education as a ‘profit-maximizing’ ‘industry’ does more than just push women and bards back in the box. It takes aim at the joy, play and very love of lifelong learning as irrelevant externalities to be eliminated for their irrational, trade-penalizing transaction costs.”

I introduce the tenets of the 2006 Spellings Report, and reference Williams’s 2008 comments upon it, to underscore what I see to be a recurring problem faced by members of the professoriate when opining about (higher) educational reform. As I see it, when pressed to comment upon what’s wrong or right with contemporary higher education, most of those inside the U.S. academy tend to emphasize the “educational values” of rigorously adventurous academic inquiry, while most everyone outside the academy fixates on the material benefits (not) conferred by higher education (or what I am calling “educational value”).

Discussions of “educational values” elaborate the moral, social, political, and cultural benefits of higher learning, while discussions of “educational value” remain more assiduously focused on the fiscal or other material advantages conferred by the educational product. And commentators like Mark Taylor exploit the righteous rhetoric of “educational values” to gussy up reductive mandates demanding greater “educational value.”

“Tenure” is the recurring red herring in this debate. To be sure, the ongoing casualization of academic labor, with its concomitant diminishment of tenure within the benefits package afforded by the ever-elusive promise of full-time academic employment, remains a pressing issue. Nevertheless, I would submit that resisting the increased rationalization of educational outcomes – a trend advocated, albeit in different idiom, by both the 2006 Spellings Report and Taylor’s 2009 editorial – has emerged as perhaps most urgent struggle for teaching scholars to engage.

Higher education, both public and private, is already being aggressively re-imagined as a commodity that must be remade to meet the demands of a shifting marketplace. Moreover, public claims of higher educational malfeasance – whether levied by Larry Kramer against “queer studies” at Yale or by State Representative Charlice Byrd against “queer theory” at Georgia State – tend to dismiss innovative models of post-disciplinary scholarly engagement as proof positive of the professoriate’s failure to sustain the core “educational value” conferred by traditional disciplinary knowledge.

Simply put, this is already shaping up to be a brutally partisan ideological battle between factions, those defending “educational values” long and dearly cultivated within the Western university on the one hand, and those demanding greater “educational value” assessed through cost-benefit, “hyper-econometric” rubrics on the other. And I suspect we already know who is certain to have “the numbers” on their side.

Brian Herrera - "The Perils of Masculine Intimacy in BAD INFLUENCE (1990)"

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:15:00 +0000

"The Perils of Masculine Intimacy in BAD INFLUENCE (1990)"

Posted originally to Film of the Month Club blog as
contribution to discussion of the 1990 film, Bad Influence.

Curtis Hanson's Califor-noir Bad Influence (1990) impressed me mostly as a "downlow" narrative of male-male courtship, depicting the peculiar perils of same-sex intimacy. I don't think I read the film as "gay" in any way. Nor do I find it especially homoerotic (despite the camera's lurid titillation by the seedier tinge of Rob Lowe's beauty).
Rather, what I find most interesting in Bad Influence is Hanson's provocatively cinematic exploitation of queer(ish) visual tropes as a way to evince the essentially uncertain perils of male-male intimacy. I'm also fascinated by the fact that Hanson, presumably developing this film in the later 1980s, was able to make a film about the erotics of masculine intimacy while somehow eliding/escaping certitudes of gayness and/or straightness.
Most centrally, and putting aside for the moment the (open) question of whether or not Lowe's Alex is "real," Bad Influence is "about" the relationship between Spader's Michael and Rob Lowe's Alex (if that is indeed his "real" name)...
I love that the environment of Alex and Michael's first real interaction -- the piers, just after Michael has checked out the men's room and discovered it closed -- is a physical location rife with "cruising" metaphor.

And that their subsequent exchange -- a battery of awkward greetings, dropped glances, and coy smiles -- is as fraught as any flirtation, a feinting encounter that becomes all the more electrifying for the speed with which it evolves into a thrilling new relationship.
I found it impossible to forget the obliquely erotic charge of this first encounter between Michael and Alex, especially as their impromptu "date" continued, first to a dive bar where they seemed only to be interested in each other and then to an underground nightclub where their scopes widened. Here, I think it worth noting how Hanson uses the "code" of the underground nightclub network to mark the next three beats of Alex and Michael's evolving relationship.
First, it's a bit of role play, requiring a touch of subservience on the part of the masculine subject. And while I wouldn't go so far to say that Lowe's Alex is the aforementioned "dominant athletic female" (though it is a somewhat amusing thought), I would suggest that the personal ad "code" does cue Spader's Michael for the "role" he takes in his subsequent relationship with Lowe's Alex. In the scenes that follow, Alex is calling the shots and Michael's learning the pleasures of taking orders. By the time of their next big night together, the two men have experienced a somewhat surprising degree of physical intimacy.
So it may be little surprise that Spader's Michael finds himself thrust into the throes of a minor identity crisis, as when he visibly bridles when Lowe's Alex voice calls from behind: "Gay White Male!"
Spader's Michael is, of course, visibly relieved to realize that "Gay White Male" is not his new title but (like "Dominant Athletic Female" before it) merely the "code" for Alex and Michael's next adventure. This moment, too, is when I become convinced that Hanson is using such "code" to underscore that Michael and Alex are getting a little too close. Indeed, the "Gay White Male" evening of adventures commences a phase when things between Michael and Alex start getting scary, when their macho playdates transform into a set of dangerous secrets that Michael must learn to guard -- to "closet" -- lest they destroy the careful construction of his public persona. The homosexual horror of this next phase in Alex and Michael's evolving intimacy is enacted gruesomely, first in their shared predatory late-nite rampage (which includes the bizarrely sexual attack on the donut shop guy, an assault which culminates when Lowe doesn't "shoot" the dude's head off, but instead "squirts" in his mouth)...
And which continues as Alex stages his careful incrimination of Michael, a nefarious scheme which promises to render permanent their passing intimacy.
At this moment in the narrative, Alex's motives beg for elaboration, yet Hanson doesn't budge. Perhaps as a result, Bad Influence becomes more interesting than it should be. And, for me, the unknowability of Alex's motives clarified the gendered operation of identity-theft noir pics more generally. At this juncture in the narrative, I found myself reflecting on the identity problems in movies like Fight Club and Strangers on a Train or, say, Single White Female or The Hand That Rocks The Cradle or Rebecca. In this screening of Bad Influence, though, I realized that the threat in female-centered identity surrogation noir is most often that of a kind of erasure, where the ominous figure (either the new friend or the absent predecessor) threatens to stealthily overtake the life of the central character, until she must fight back in order to protect her own integrity/personhood. In male-centered pics (like Fight Club or Strangers on a Train or Bad Influence), on the other hand, the ominous new character is not so much about identity dissolution/displacement but more about the threat of unveiling a core, intimate truth about the male protagonist. (As when, here, Lowe's Alex taunts Spader's Michael with the breathy allegation: "I didn't make you do anything that wasn't in you already.") The thrill of male-centered identity surrogation films often follow from one man's choice to reveal his true desires to a charismatic male stranger and, subsequently, how this other man chooses to utilize this intimate "secret" to compel the protagonist to do terrible things. It's a fascinating, gendered tension -- identity dissolution versus identity revelation -- that I don't think I would have discerned where it not for the curious peril of masculine intimacy in Bad Influence. It's also why, to my mind at least, why the third beat in Alex and Michael's relationship is cued by the final bit of personal ad "code": Fun Loving Couple.
While Alex has wreaked his desired havoc in Michael's life and is ready to move on (to a porny threesome with two women no less), Michael decides brings a third into the drama of his primary relationship with Alex. And not only is Michael's "third" a man, but it's Michael's brother Pismo (Christian Clemenson). In this moment, the model of masculine intimacy embodied by the Michael-Pismo dyad (a signal of the intrinsic, if imperfect, reliability of filial trust) stands in a conclusive contradistinction to the Michael-Alex dyad (an example of the perilous thrills of the mancrush). And, of course, with the normative masculine intimacy of his connection with his brother to moor his unsteadiness, Michael's relationship Alex ends where it began -- in the cruisy isolation of the pier -- with one man decisively communicating to the other who's on top.
All told, Curtis Hanson's Bad Influence is a surprisingly rich exploration of the perceived perils of masculine intimacy and, in the best noir tradition, Hanson is somewhat astonishingly unapologetic in his use of queerish/erotic visual tropes to explore the uncertain terrain of male-male emotional infatuation.

Brian Herrera - "Okuzaki's Shtick"

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:19:00 +0000

"Okuzaki's Shtick"

Posted originally to Film of the Month Club blog as
contribution to discussion of the 1987 film, Yuki Yikite shingun".

Following Rick Olson's "Prophetic Performance and the Documentary Gaze", I find that I'm fixated on Okuzaki Kenzo's shtick, on his performance of himself before Hara's camera, on what performance studies types like me might call Otuzaki's "autoperformance" (click here for an apt elaboration of the premise within a performance art context).

As we see throughout the film, Okuzaki is an adept improviser, capable of calibrating his autoperformance to provoke or to calm his audience in a flash second. Yet, like the most skilled improvisers, Okuzaki also relies upon some well-rehearsed stock pieces, familiar bits of business easily deployed at a moment's notice depending on the audience's shifting needs. Hara's camera captures most of Okuzaki's shtick repeatedly. Indeed, by the end of the film, the viewer has perhaps unknowingly become something of an expert on Okuzaki's distinctive "act."

To illustrate, Okuzaki deploys different items in his repertoire toward distinct effects. Some redirect the action of the scene when things threaten to spin out of his control ("I'll call the cops for you"). Others utilize ostensibly factual declaratives to verbally reassert Okuzaki's authority ("I went to prison for 13 years and 9 months" or "You were my commander but I'm a better man than you"). Still others are mostly non-verbal as when -- in each of his three filmed assaults on his interviewees -- he pauses, while poised in a position of dominance, to politely request his victim's assent. Hara's film fully documents these performative aspects of Okuzaki's ambush interview style. In so doing, Hara's camera forcefully illustrates that, as much as each encounter is its own "real" event occurring in its own "real" time, Okuzaki has the benefit of ample rehearsal for his part in each performance.

Perhaps the most vivid demonstration of Okuzaki's shtick comes in his brief collaboration with the surviving siblings of the two murdered privates. As these grieving individuals get into the swing of Okuzaki's act, they too begin to improvise, demanding their own answers from the interviews as distinct from Okuzaki's own interrogatives. The siblings' privileged status as visibly grieving survivors inspires the sustained attention and respect of the interviewees (which Okuzaki is quick to exploit as he forwards his own, by now familiar, claims). But these grieving siblings also upstage Okuzaki, as the interviewees increasingly direct their communication to the family members and ignore Okuzaki. Little surprise then, when the siblings -- for reasons that not made clear by either Hara or Okuzaki -- choose not accompany Okuzaki on future outings, that Okuzaki folds "their" presence into his own shtick by "casting" his wife and friends in the roles "originated" by the actual siblings, directing them to "act well but let me do the talking."

Okuzaki understands the circuit of performance -- recall his instruction to the grieving mother to "start over" when she "messed up" her vocal lament for her lost son -- but the fact that he's performing doesn't make his actions any less "real." Consider his savvy expression of his alibis, his "reasons" for doing what he's doing. I caught three, usually presented in the same sequence and using the same inflection. The first ("to console the souls" of the dead) assuages the spirit, while the second ("to tell the truth about war" so as to prevent future conflicts) addresses the conscience. Okuzaki seems to intuit that these first two make sense to most people. This might be why Okuzaki keeps the lid on his third and arguably most imperative reason ("to reveal Hirohito as a war criminal") the only one of his alibis to directly address the intellect -- for it outs Okuzaki as something of a crackpot and is especially vulnerable to what becomes a familiar rebuke, "That's your opinion." (Indeed, the statement "that's your opinion" seems to work like kryptonite for Okuzaki, requiring that he immediately reboot his performance with a distinctly different bit of business.)

Yet as much as Okuzaki is a skilled performer, I suspect he's most interesting for his adept use of the performative. Okuzaki's "act" -- through careful verbal and embodied repetion -- does help to instantiate the evidentiary reality of the counternarrative he seeks. The "truth" is revealed through Okuzaki's shticky fakery. All of which opens yet another angle on the question that everyone seems to have about this film: would Okuzaki's autonomous, adept performance shtick have done the work we see it do without the ratifying audience provided by Hara's lens?

Brian Herrera - "Dan Guerrero: Tending the Hybrid Histories of Chicana/o Popular Performance"

noreply@blogger.com (StinkyLulu) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:02:00 +0000

"Dan Guerrero: Tending the Hybrid Histories of Chicana/o Popular Performance"

Keynote remarks delivered at the public reception celebrating Dan Guerrero as the UCLA César E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies’s “Distinguished Community Scholar” for Winter 2008. 30 January 2008. UCLA Faculty Center, Los Angeles, CA.

I am privileged to stand before you this evening, invited to speak just a little about the extraordinary work of the César E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies’s “Distinguished Community Scholar” for Winter 2008: Dan Guerrero. I am likewise honored to have this opportunity to acknowledge the important work of the “Distinguished Community Scholar” program itself.

When my friend and colleague Davíd Hernandez shared the possibility of this event, I was taken with the premise of the Distinguished Community Scholar program. How appropriate, how smart – I though – how at once forward thinking and respectful of tradition such a program is. And how glad I am that the nation’s premiere program in Chicana/o Studies chooses to contribute to the field’s future by so elegantly sustaining the field’s foundational imperatives.

Indeed, the mission to value the distinctive ways of knowing that developed within the Chicana/o community stands as perhaps the movimiento strategy that I hold in highest reverence. The ethical practice of valuing the Chicana/o community and its constituents as the authoritative sources of our history, our literature, our culture remains, for me, among the most essential gestures of Chicana/o Studies as an academic and cultural intervention. What’s more – it is precisely this gesture that comprises the basis of what is my first personal memory of Chicano Studies.

It is a memory that comes from my toddler days, from the family stories and jokes that spun around my great-grandmother Evangelista Trujillo and her first encounters with The Chicano Movement. It was the early 1970s in Las Vegas, New Mexico and it was that moment in time when some of the first college courses in Chicano Studies were being offered at Highlands University. My great-grandmother – who everyone called Gramma Tita, whether they were related or not – Gramma Tita was unsure what to make of all these college kids, in their black and khaki and camouflage. An unrepentant wearer of meticulous pin curls, Gramma Tita especially did not know what to think of all the Chicanas with their flat straight hair, the natural wave so carefully cooked out with a ferociously hot stove iron.

See, Gramma Tita – the reigning authority on pretty much everything in my family – let’s just say she did not exactly approve of Chicanos. Like many elder nuevomexicanos of the time, Gramma Tita did not endorse the Chicano politics, the Chicano activism, the Chicano styles, and – perhaps most of all – the very name: Chicano. (Indeed, one of the great apocryphal stories of my family comes from the explanation of that crack in the plaster ceiling of the rented house on 8th Street, that one stubborn crack that seemed never to stay repaired. That crack – so the story goes – marked the exact spot where Gramma Tita hit the roof when my aunt Lorraine came from college and proclaimed “Yo soy Chicana!”) No, Gramma Tita made no secret of her disapproval of all things Chicano.

So it must have surprised her when some of those same Chicano Studies kids from the college started poking around, asking her if they might ask her some questions, if they might hear some of her stories, as part of something called “an oral history” project in which these same young Chicanas and Chicanos gathered testimonios from elders in the community about the way things were and the way things had once been. My grandmother’s reputation in the community as an erstwhile curandera, as well as her family’s unusual history in the region, stirred the interested of these flat-haired, camo-khaki college Chicanas. And my Gramma Tita agreed to meet, and to talk, and to feed these young people the testimonios they seemed to crave.

Unfortunately, I do not know what Gramma Tita told these Chicano Studies students. We do know these interviews happened and, despite some concerted effort on my part, I have not as yet been able to identify Gramma Tita’s testimonios among those archived from these early Chicano Studies oral history projects archived at the Highlands library.

But I tell you this story tonight because, on the one hand, this story – Gramma Tita y Los Chicanos, or Gramma Tita’s Close Encounters of the Chicano Studies Kind – this story stands as my first encounter with the idea of Chicano Studies as an academic discipline. As such, this story remains a touchstone for me whenever I reflect upon the coordinating spirit, ethics and tactics of the historical Chicano Movement. The historical Chicano Movement prioritized, honored and respected the literatures, the politics, the analyses, the historical memories and the traditions of knowing practiced by the many “organic intellectuals” – like Gramma Tita – populating Mexican American communities across North America. This story also evokes what is for me the essence of Chicano Studies academic practice and reminds us how the practitioners of this evolving academic discipline have, since those early days, defined their method by finding innovative ways of bridging the gaps between “the academy” and “the community” – or, put another way, between “institutions of knowledge” and “traditions of knowing.” Finally, I choose to share my Gramma Tita story for the ways it might also underscore how fully the UCLA Chicana and Chicano Studies’s Distinguished Community Scholar program exemplifies the coordinating spirit, ethic and practice of Chicano Studies as an academic movement.

But I also remember my Gramma Tita with you tonight as a way of acknowledging the spirit, ethic and practice of your Distinguished Community Scholar for 2008: Dan Guerrero. Because – even if you have not seen his show, who even if you have only just met him – you likely already know one thing about Dan: Dan Guerrero Tells a Good Story.

Indeed, Dan’s work – which I know mostly through his one-man, autobiographical theatre piece, Gaytino! – builds around his telling stories. Good stories. Surprising stories. Smart stories. Heart stories. Many of which deal with Dan Guerrero’s incredible career in the U.S. entertainment industry, beginning with his being raised as a child of multicultural Los Angeles (before we even knew there was such a thing), the son of one of the first Chicano cultural superstars. Dan’s stories follow his journey as he – a young, gay, Latino musical theatre performer – forged his own path in chilly New York, a pioneering member of the East Coast Chicano Diaspora (again, before we knew there was such a thing), and document how he became politicized by the lack of opportunities for Latinas/os in the U.S. entertainment industry. In short, Dan’s stories tell his story – his history.

When I began to organize my own remarks for this evening’s celebration, I expected that I would talk about Dan Guerrero’s history, especially how Guerrero’s pioneering career as an activist/entertainer working within the U.S. entertainment industrial complex charts an important and under-studied thread within Chicano labor history. I suspected that I might spend some time tonight discussing how Dan Guerrero’s work and career fit within an easily disregarded protest tradition wherein Chicano/Latino entertainers and industry professionals self-consciously stand both within and outside the Hollywood and/or Broadway apparatus, enacting a complex dialectic of professional advocacy and strategic creativity. For Dan Guerrero’s life, work and stories do chart what I consider to be an important, unexamined thread within the history of Chicano cultural activism.

But as I was developing my material for a talk that might match my promised title (“Tending the Hybrid Histories of Chicano Popular Performance”), I found myself writing sentences like: “Guerrero’s work reflects a dialectic of creativity and critique borne of the autochthonous epistemological foundations of the Chicano movement.” And as I found myself writing THAT sentence (“Guerrero’s work reflects a dialectic of creativity and critique borne of the autochthonous epistemological foundations of the Chicano movement”), I could just hear Dan’s voice – remember it has been nearly two years since Dan and I last spoke – but, clear as day, upon hearing my “autochthonous epistemological foundations,” I could hear Dan say: “I do all THAT?!” Or: “I had no idea I was doing all that. I’m just telling stories…”

Which caused me to pause. Yes, Dan Guerrero’s work does do all that. And, yes, Dan Guerrero is “just” telling his story. But in telling his story, and in doing the work he will be doing this quarter leading students in telling their stories in his course, “The Power of One,” Dan Guerrero’s work is inhabiting the conventions of one of the foundational gestures of Chicano Studies practice: the testimonio (a complex genre of oral history and ethnography innovated by Chicano Studies and Latin Americanists since the later 1960s).

Dan Guerrero’s work as a solo performance artist redeploys the core conventions of the testimonio. As Guerrero relates his personal story and his history directly in dialogue with his audience as his interlocutor, Guerrero neither speaks for, nor offers himself as representative of, any of his particular communities. Rather, Dan Guerrero performs what literary scholar George Yúdice has termed “an act of identity-formation which is simultaneously personal and collective” (15). And while Guerrero’s work might seem to be straight up solo performance of the sort performance artist and cultural commentator Holly Hughes describes as “a particularly American tradition of testifying, of witnessing history in the first person” (2), I would submit that Guerrero’s work operates as an especially 21st century riff on the testimonio as an essential genre of Chicano Studies as cultural practice. By so foregrounding the theatrical dimensions of the performative genre of the testimonio (or relating a single story to a specified interlocutor) in Gaytino!, Dan Guerrero utilizes the theatrical frame to stage the testimonio encounter as performance. And as he shares his testimonios with his many audiences, Dan Guerrero reminds us all of the coordinating spirit of the Chicano Studies movement and welcomes us once again to those traditions of knowing that are among its most generous legacies. A truly distinguished community scholar, indeed.

WORKS CITED:
Holly Hughes and David Román, O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance (New York: Grove Press, 1998).
George Yúdice, “Testimonio and Postmodernism,” Latin American Perspectives (Summer 1991): 15-31.