A public lecture by Professor Jennifer Parker-Starbuck (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Type of post: Association news item
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Posted By: Peta Tait
Status: Current
Date Posted: Tue, 13 Sep 2022

The Sea is on Fire: Machinic Crustaceans and Ecological Promises
A public lecture by Professor Jennifer Parker-Starbuck (Royal Holloway, University of London)


Thursday
29 September 2022 
6:00pm 7:30pm
Forum Theatre (153), Arts West - North Wing (148A)


The Future Scenarios: Performance, Climate, Ecology series in the School of Culture & Communication is proud to present a public lecture by visiting scholar Professor Jennifer Parker-Starbuck. Focusing largely on Les Machines des L’ȋle in Nantes, France, a “theme park” of mechanical animals and sea creatures, this public lecture reflects on the power of machinic or substitute creatures to both point to and at the same time override environmental concerns. Will riding on a giant manta ray increase awareness later in life toward the environmental challenges the seas will face? Can embodiment shift the human-animal-technological balance?

Professor Jennifer Parker-Starbuck is an internationally renowned expert in theatre history and theory. She has recently served as Executive Dean of the School of Performing and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London, and is the author of a number of books on multimedia performance including Cyborg Theatre: Corporeal/Technological Intersections in Multimedia Performance (2011); Performance and Media: Taxonomies for a Changing Field (co-authored with S. Bay-Cheng and D. Saltz, 2015), and co-editor of Performing Animality: Animals in Performance Practices (2015). Professor Parker-Starbuck has served as editor of Theatre Journal, a contributing editor for PAJ: A Journal of Art and Performance, and an editorial board member of the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. Currently, she is a co-Theme Leader of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Creative Industries Cluster Grant and International Centre of Excellence Grant, a £9.5 million project based at Royal Holloway, University of London, for which she is a theme leader for StoryLab, a center for immersive storytelling. Jennifer is also involved as a Partner Investigator with the Australian Research Council-funded project Towards an Australian Ecological Theatre, based at The University of Melbourne. https://bit.ly/parkerstarbuck

This event is sponsored by the School of Culture and Communication at The University of Melbourne and the Macgeorge Bequest.
This is a free event, and registration is essential.

Please note: This is a mask-friendly event. As it is held indoors, the University of Melbourne’s current advice strongly recommends mask use in indoor settings. See the University’s current COVID Safe guidelines here: https://www.unimelb.edu.au/coronavirus