Benjamin Gillespie | Baruch College CUNY (original) (raw)
Papers by Benjamin Gillespie
Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 2024
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2024
The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature, 2024
This chapter theorizes the intersection between the Theatre of the Absurd traditions with Camp an... more This chapter theorizes the intersection between the Theatre of the Absurd traditions with Camp and Queer performance and theory. Utilizing the work of the renowned lesbian-feminist theater company Split Britches (made up of Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver), this chapter demonstrates the possibility of thinking the Theatre of the Absurd beyond traditional gender and sexual categories to include LGBTQ+ theater. Here, Camp and the absurd intersect through the lesbian butch/femme subjectivity of Shaw and Weaver, creating a “Camp absurd” aesthetic. This aesthetic reflects a queer worldview which undermines heteronormative, gendered imperatives in theater and society. Focusing on Split Britches’ Belle Reprieve (1991)—a queer deconstruction of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire—the notion of a Camp absurd is grounded in performance and textual analysis.
Milestones in Staging Genders and Sexualities, 2024
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2020
New York City, began his curated SEGAL TALKS series, hour-long daily conversations with theatre a... more New York City, began his curated SEGAL TALKS series, hour-long daily conversations with theatre artists and cultural thinkers from around the globe. Hentschker's aim in conceiving "In the Time of Corona" has been to offer a platform for global voices to discuss the current challenges and sorrows, as well as hope for what he calls the new Weltzustandthe state of the world. This unique program has been made in collaboration with HowlRound Theatre Commons at Emerson College, Boston and is archived at HowlRound.com. The selections reproduced here, representing thirty artists and thinkers from twenty countries, feature edited excerpts from the conversations in April, May, and June 2020.
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2021
Springer eBooks, 2022
This essay provides new critical readings of two de ning queer performances: The Ridiculous Theat... more This essay provides new critical readings of two de ning queer performances: The Ridiculous Theatrical Company's Camille (1973) and Split Britches/Bloolips' Belle Reprieve (1991), demonstrating how these two pieces reinforce a notion of queer be/coming from a comparative historical perspective. Edgecomb and Gillespie investigate how pastiche and drag are (re)envisioned in these performances to formulate approaches to camp that are distinctly queer, while also gender-speci c, both re ecting and troubling the limited de nitions of gender provided by the identity politics of the gay liberation movement and the decade following.
Routledge eBooks, Jul 12, 2022
Analysing Gender in Performance, 2022
This essay provides new critical readings of two defining queer performances: The Ridiculous Thea... more This essay provides new critical readings of two defining queer performances: The Ridiculous Theatrical Company's Camille (1973) and Split Britches/Bloolips' Belle Reprieve (1991), demonstrating how these two pieces reinforce a notion of queer be/coming from a comparative historical perspective. Edgecomb and Gillespie investigate how pastiche and drag are (re)envisioned in these performances to formulate approaches to camp that are distinctly queer, while also gender-specific, both reflecting and troubling the limited definitions of gender provided by the identity politics of the gay liberation movement and the decade following.
Theatre Research in Canada, 2016
Art and Culture After September 11 th , T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko creates an archive of feeling-or... more Art and Culture After September 11 th , T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko creates an archive of feeling-or, perhaps more appropriately, an archive of falling-through the analysis of performance art, photography, visual art, and film created in the decade after the fall of the Twin Towers. In her critical analysis, Cesare Schotzko demonstrates how the experience of event documentation offers a skewed mode of representation precisely because of the ways in which these traces circulate through culture, referring to this process as "the economy of the event" (5). Considering how event documentation often falls prey to aesthetic considerations, she convincingly theorizes how our perception of the real, and the ways in which the real is (re)presented to us publically, is an always-already mediated process of cultural circulation that drafts new forms of social memory. According to her argument, contemporary society has developed "an inability to discern what we see from how we look" (5), making any event a phenomenon that is extant only through its intersubjective response. Through technological reproduction, our perception of history and memory are reformed to the extent that context and meaning have been abstracted into the virtual. Each chapter is organized thematically rather than chronologically, focusing on a set of case studies put loosely in conversation with one another. Cesare Schotzko refers to her organizational approach as dramaturgical, employing diverse examples to create a mise en scène rather than a linear narrative. A single image haunts her critical analysis throughout the book: Richard Drew's Falling Man, a photograph that captures an anonymous victim falling to his death on September 11 th. As a constant point of reference, Cesare Schotzko reveals how the aesthetic nature of this image (especially in the critiques that followed its release) relates to our own subjective encounter with the event it supposedly documents: "The Falling Man's descent is infinitely repeated in our continued engagement with and bearing witness to his image" (36), turning it into a kind of performance we are forced to repeatedly critique. In large part, her book offers an example of how the act of bearing witness often allows us to construct different, albeit necessary, histories that, for better or worse, get repeated again and again in separate but related contexts. For example, in Chapter One, she considers how Drew's image has been reinterpreted through subsequent projects, such as Carolee Schneemann's Terminal Velocity, making any apparent truth of the event exist in discord with our experience of its documentation. Cesare Schotzko continues to call attention to this performative layering of truth in subsequent chapters. In Chapter Two, pulling from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, she argues that the masquerading of art within the culture industry is an "untruth of style" (77), which is predicated on marketability rather than originality, highlighted through the example of reperformance in Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present at MoMA in 2010. Her reading of Abramović's immensely popular retrospective installation, as well as its marketing campaign premised on Abramović's marathon labour, offers a vivid example of
Fifty Key Figures in US Queer Theatre, Eds.Jimmy A. Noriega and Jordan Schildcrout, 2022
Canadian Theatre Review, 2022
Theatre Research in Canada 42.2, 2021
Introduction to Special Issue of Theatre Research in Canada on "Age and Performance: Expanding In... more Introduction to Special Issue of Theatre Research in Canada on "Age and Performance: Expanding Intersectionality" 42.2 (Fall 2021): 169-173
Canadian Theatre Review, 2021
In March 2021, internationally acclaimed queer performance artist Jess Dobkin sits down with fell... more In March 2021, internationally acclaimed queer performance artist Jess Dobkin sits down with fellow Aquarian Benjamin Gillespie to talk about turning 50, her yet-to-be-seen retrospective exhibition playfully titled Wetrospective in Toronto, and new ideas about art and performance that have emerged during the pandemic pause.
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2018
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 43.3 (September 2021), 2021
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2020
Theatre Topics 30.2 , 2020
Our intention with this essay is to demonstrate that chronology is not the most effective approac... more Our intention with this essay is to demonstrate that chronology is not the most effective approach for teaching queer theatre and performance histories. While it is a common practice to map out significant theatrical events through presenting a linear progression of history, especially in larger survey courses, the essay proposes an alternative model that seeks to uncover the intergenerational connections and queer temporalities embedded within queer history.
Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 2024
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2024
The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature, 2024
This chapter theorizes the intersection between the Theatre of the Absurd traditions with Camp an... more This chapter theorizes the intersection between the Theatre of the Absurd traditions with Camp and Queer performance and theory. Utilizing the work of the renowned lesbian-feminist theater company Split Britches (made up of Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver), this chapter demonstrates the possibility of thinking the Theatre of the Absurd beyond traditional gender and sexual categories to include LGBTQ+ theater. Here, Camp and the absurd intersect through the lesbian butch/femme subjectivity of Shaw and Weaver, creating a “Camp absurd” aesthetic. This aesthetic reflects a queer worldview which undermines heteronormative, gendered imperatives in theater and society. Focusing on Split Britches’ Belle Reprieve (1991)—a queer deconstruction of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire—the notion of a Camp absurd is grounded in performance and textual analysis.
Milestones in Staging Genders and Sexualities, 2024
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2020
New York City, began his curated SEGAL TALKS series, hour-long daily conversations with theatre a... more New York City, began his curated SEGAL TALKS series, hour-long daily conversations with theatre artists and cultural thinkers from around the globe. Hentschker's aim in conceiving "In the Time of Corona" has been to offer a platform for global voices to discuss the current challenges and sorrows, as well as hope for what he calls the new Weltzustandthe state of the world. This unique program has been made in collaboration with HowlRound Theatre Commons at Emerson College, Boston and is archived at HowlRound.com. The selections reproduced here, representing thirty artists and thinkers from twenty countries, feature edited excerpts from the conversations in April, May, and June 2020.
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2021
Springer eBooks, 2022
This essay provides new critical readings of two de ning queer performances: The Ridiculous Theat... more This essay provides new critical readings of two de ning queer performances: The Ridiculous Theatrical Company's Camille (1973) and Split Britches/Bloolips' Belle Reprieve (1991), demonstrating how these two pieces reinforce a notion of queer be/coming from a comparative historical perspective. Edgecomb and Gillespie investigate how pastiche and drag are (re)envisioned in these performances to formulate approaches to camp that are distinctly queer, while also gender-speci c, both re ecting and troubling the limited de nitions of gender provided by the identity politics of the gay liberation movement and the decade following.
Routledge eBooks, Jul 12, 2022
Analysing Gender in Performance, 2022
This essay provides new critical readings of two defining queer performances: The Ridiculous Thea... more This essay provides new critical readings of two defining queer performances: The Ridiculous Theatrical Company's Camille (1973) and Split Britches/Bloolips' Belle Reprieve (1991), demonstrating how these two pieces reinforce a notion of queer be/coming from a comparative historical perspective. Edgecomb and Gillespie investigate how pastiche and drag are (re)envisioned in these performances to formulate approaches to camp that are distinctly queer, while also gender-specific, both reflecting and troubling the limited definitions of gender provided by the identity politics of the gay liberation movement and the decade following.
Theatre Research in Canada, 2016
Art and Culture After September 11 th , T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko creates an archive of feeling-or... more Art and Culture After September 11 th , T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko creates an archive of feeling-or, perhaps more appropriately, an archive of falling-through the analysis of performance art, photography, visual art, and film created in the decade after the fall of the Twin Towers. In her critical analysis, Cesare Schotzko demonstrates how the experience of event documentation offers a skewed mode of representation precisely because of the ways in which these traces circulate through culture, referring to this process as "the economy of the event" (5). Considering how event documentation often falls prey to aesthetic considerations, she convincingly theorizes how our perception of the real, and the ways in which the real is (re)presented to us publically, is an always-already mediated process of cultural circulation that drafts new forms of social memory. According to her argument, contemporary society has developed "an inability to discern what we see from how we look" (5), making any event a phenomenon that is extant only through its intersubjective response. Through technological reproduction, our perception of history and memory are reformed to the extent that context and meaning have been abstracted into the virtual. Each chapter is organized thematically rather than chronologically, focusing on a set of case studies put loosely in conversation with one another. Cesare Schotzko refers to her organizational approach as dramaturgical, employing diverse examples to create a mise en scène rather than a linear narrative. A single image haunts her critical analysis throughout the book: Richard Drew's Falling Man, a photograph that captures an anonymous victim falling to his death on September 11 th. As a constant point of reference, Cesare Schotzko reveals how the aesthetic nature of this image (especially in the critiques that followed its release) relates to our own subjective encounter with the event it supposedly documents: "The Falling Man's descent is infinitely repeated in our continued engagement with and bearing witness to his image" (36), turning it into a kind of performance we are forced to repeatedly critique. In large part, her book offers an example of how the act of bearing witness often allows us to construct different, albeit necessary, histories that, for better or worse, get repeated again and again in separate but related contexts. For example, in Chapter One, she considers how Drew's image has been reinterpreted through subsequent projects, such as Carolee Schneemann's Terminal Velocity, making any apparent truth of the event exist in discord with our experience of its documentation. Cesare Schotzko continues to call attention to this performative layering of truth in subsequent chapters. In Chapter Two, pulling from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, she argues that the masquerading of art within the culture industry is an "untruth of style" (77), which is predicated on marketability rather than originality, highlighted through the example of reperformance in Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present at MoMA in 2010. Her reading of Abramović's immensely popular retrospective installation, as well as its marketing campaign premised on Abramović's marathon labour, offers a vivid example of
Fifty Key Figures in US Queer Theatre, Eds.Jimmy A. Noriega and Jordan Schildcrout, 2022
Canadian Theatre Review, 2022
Theatre Research in Canada 42.2, 2021
Introduction to Special Issue of Theatre Research in Canada on "Age and Performance: Expanding In... more Introduction to Special Issue of Theatre Research in Canada on "Age and Performance: Expanding Intersectionality" 42.2 (Fall 2021): 169-173
Canadian Theatre Review, 2021
In March 2021, internationally acclaimed queer performance artist Jess Dobkin sits down with fell... more In March 2021, internationally acclaimed queer performance artist Jess Dobkin sits down with fellow Aquarian Benjamin Gillespie to talk about turning 50, her yet-to-be-seen retrospective exhibition playfully titled Wetrospective in Toronto, and new ideas about art and performance that have emerged during the pandemic pause.
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2018
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 43.3 (September 2021), 2021
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 2020
Theatre Topics 30.2 , 2020
Our intention with this essay is to demonstrate that chronology is not the most effective approac... more Our intention with this essay is to demonstrate that chronology is not the most effective approach for teaching queer theatre and performance histories. While it is a common practice to map out significant theatrical events through presenting a linear progression of history, especially in larger survey courses, the essay proposes an alternative model that seeks to uncover the intergenerational connections and queer temporalities embedded within queer history.
Canadian Theatre Review, 2020
Review of Peter Dickinson, C. E. Gatchalian, Kathleen Oliver, and Dalbir Singh, editors. Q2Q: Que... more Review of Peter Dickinson, C. E. Gatchalian, Kathleen Oliver,
and Dalbir Singh, editors. Q2Q: Queer Canadian Theatre and
Performance and Q2Q: Queer Canadian Performance Texts, Playwrights
Canada, 2018.