Towards Justice
University of San Jorge
Cultural Sniping by Gaslight: Confronting Gender Violence in Theatrical Revivals View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lee Conderacci
Theatre artists constantly reimagine texts and narratives in ways that draw together the past and the present—whether that past is centuries, decades, or even just a few years behind us. Since the rise of the #MeToo movement, theatre has increasingly interrogated and re-engaged with representations and stories of sexual and gender violence throughout canons of dramatic literature. While it can be generative to trace the patterns of this violence through historical texts and make connections with contemporary experiences, it is crucial to address embedded issues of misogyny when staging these older plays. How can theatre artists revive canonical plays in ways that confront both interpersonal and structural forms of gender violence and center those who have survived it? This paper examines a contemporary production of the 1938 play Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton which, through a critical intersectional feminist interpretation, aims to disrupt the white patriarchal focus of the original text and present a subversive counter-narrative that centers survivors, both onstage and in the audience. As the director of this production, I have worked with the cast, using Elaine Aston’s guidelines (inspired by Jo Spence’s term “cultural sniping”) for feminist restaging of canonical plays, to expose and critique the misogyny in Hamilton’s text while emphasizing the journey and empowerment of the central character, a survivor of domestic violence. In this analysis of our Gaslight, I discuss how critical directing and acting choices can reimagine historical plays to resonate with and serve contemporary audiences, most particularly survivors of sexual and gender violence.
Trying To Combat Epistemic Injustice in a Post-Colonial World: The Case of Latin American Art View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jessica Rodarte
Talking about epistemic injustice implies diverse reflections, one of them is related with the idea of a distorted social perception. According to Fricker (2017) “epistemic injustice” plays an essential role in social experience, because it leaves some aspects of society such as knowledge or beliefs in a vulnerable position. Furthermore, some practices tend to establish dominance over the degree of validation of other possibilities, which mostly are part of a minority. A controversial subject about this situation is the case of Latin America. The main purpose of this text is to start a dialogue about a possible way of dealing with this “epistemic injustice” in a post-colonialism world to understand how Western discursive continuing undermine the configuration of diverse aspects in society, including culture and artistic practices. In addition, this text highlights the fact that even tough exist efforts about how native people in Latin America would be included in our modern society we need to be aware about the essential role of a whole mechanism, which includes a good praxis and the true recognized of another epistemic discourses. To achieve this, we need to explore the following concept’s “prejudice”, “ignorance”, “testimonial injustice”, “hermeneutical injustice”, and “hermeneutical marginalization” to explain factors that influence in the configuration of this “distorted social perception”. The first challenge is focused on understanding post-colonialism discourse as an example of “epistemic injustice”. And the second is focused on the proposal of an intercultural approach as a possible solution to this kind of “ignorance”.
Threading Narratives: A Feminist Arts-based Approach View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Deborah Randolph, Ann Rowson Love
This paper addresses a current research process and findings from a feminist inquiry using arts-based methodologies to create the narratives of analysis. The research project took place over the past two years and involved interviewing contemporary arts researchers, some university-based and some based in art museums, who are interested in more qualitative ways of gaining understandings about how viewers make meaning from art experiences. The research data analysis included feminist discourse and arts-based processes to thread together the stories of participants revealing findings through metaphor and visual art production through weaving. This study considers the theme of Pedagogies of the Arts by exploring learning through the arts within qualitative research contexts. The authors consider ways of seeing, learning, and knowing in the reporting of findings from a specific research project. This is the “what” of the study. The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life theme encompasses the “why” of the presentation and our research. It is our hope that the findings from our research about qualitative research in art museums, shared through this presentation, will assist museums and galleries as they become social institutions and begin asking questions about inclusion, community, access, and social justice. Readers from various fields may benefit from this discussion of feminist inquiry and arts-based methodologies and take away insights for their own artistic practices and organizations.
