Skip to main content
Article
Performance: An Approach to Strengthening Interdisciplinarity in Women's Studies and Gender Studies
PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research
  • Ann M Shanahan, Loyola University Chicago
  • Prudence A. Moylan, Loyola University Chicago
  • Betsy Jones Hemenway, Loyola University Chicago
  • Bren Ortega Murphy, Loyola University Chicago
  • Jacqueline Long, Loyola University Chicago
  • Susan Grossman, Loyola University Chicago
  • Dr. Hector Garcia, Loyola University Chicago
  • Mary Dominiak, Loyola University Chicago
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2016
Disciplines
Abstract

Issues of transition are always difficult and transforming founding assumptions to suit changing conditions can be a challenge for Women’s Studies and Gender Studies programs in the corporate university environment. This essay explains how performance of Fefu and Her Friends by Marie Irene Fornes in a mansion on campus led faculty participants in History, Classics, Modern Languages, Theatre, Communication, Social Work, and Nursing to re-vision their professional lives and the institutional status of the Women’s Studies and Gender Studies program through a new appreciation for interdisciplinarity, derived from using performance as research. Each of eight faculty reflect on their experience of performance as an embodied pedagogy and method of research. The importance of emotion, trust, and responsibility in team work and collaboration, consideration of bodies in spaces and communities, and linkages between theory to practice are all considered in reflections. The individual re-visioning led to changes and renewed energy in the WSGS program and faculty collaboration in research and teaching.

Comments

© Shanahan, Ann M.; Moylan, Prudence A.; Hemenway, Betsy Jones; Murphy, Bren Ortega; Long, Jacqueline; Grossman, Susan; Garcia, Hector; and Dominiak, Mary, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of the University of Colorado Boulder for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, October, 2016, http://scholar.colorado.edu/partake/vol1/iss1/4%20

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Citation Information
Ann M Shanahan, Prudence A. Moylan, Betsy Jones Hemenway, Bren Ortega Murphy, et al.. "Performance: An Approach to Strengthening Interdisciplinarity in Women's Studies and Gender Studies" PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research Vol. 1 Iss. 1 (2016)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/betsy-joneshemenway/3/