Black Performance and Biopolitics

This working group seeks to develop the encounter between critical theory and black cultural and performance studies at a crucial juncture. As the rise of blackness as a sign of prestige in the global lifestyle marketplace reaches its zenith, the framework Foucault offered a generation ago, that "maybe the target ... is not to discover who we are, but to refuse who we are" seems as salient as ever. What forms might this refusal take in the domain of art and performance? What possibilities and hazards for black cultural studies are opened up by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's recent theorizations around "affective labor" and "biopolitical production," or Giorgio Agamben and Paul Gilroy's explorations of "bare life"? Our first objective will be to develop a bibliography of black performance and biopolitics, as a bases for future colloborations, on and off-line.

For more details on how to participate please contact Tavia N'yongo - tan205@nyu.edu