Colloquium Series: The Sociodramatic Experiment: Performing Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement
Paige McGinley-Associate Professor of Performing Arts, Washington University in St. Louis
Professor Paige McGinley reveals the behind-the-scenes work of training for nonviolent direct action during the middle decades of the twentieth century. During this time, movement leaders deployed role-play exercises known as sociodramas to prepare interracial groups for embodied protest. Building on analysis of archival materials and oral histories, this lecture explores the work of the rehearsal, the mid-century ethos of experimentation, and the relationship between activism and acting to offer a new point of view on debates surrounding the theory and practice of nonviolence.
Bio: Paige McGinley is Associate Professor of Performing Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also holds an affiliate appointment with American Culture Studies. She is the author of Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism (Duke UP, 2014), which was recognized with the Errol Hill Award and the John W. Frick Book Prize. A recipient of an NEH Fellowship, McGinley is currently completing Rehearsing Civil Rights: Practicing the Law, 1932-1968, the first in-depth examination of rehearsals for nonviolent direct action and self-determination in the mid-century black freedom struggle.