Identity, Culture, and the Science Performance, Volume 1: From the Lab to the Streets is the first of two volumes dedicated to the diverse sociocultural work of science-oriented performance. A dynamic volume of scholarly essays, interviews with scientists and artists, and creative entries, it examines explicitly public-facing science performances that operate within and for specialist and non-specialist populations.
The book’s chapters trace the theatrical and ethical contours of live science events, re-enact historical stagings of scientific expertise, and demonstrate the pedagogical and activist potentials in performing science in community settings. Alongside the scholarly chapters, From the Lab to the Streets features creative work by contemporary science-integrative artists and interviews with popular science communicators Sahana Srinivasan (host of Netflix’s Brainchild) and Raven Baxter (“Raven the Science Maven”) and artists from performance ensembles The Olimpias and Superhero Clubhouse.
In exploring the science performance as a vital but flawed method of public engagement, it offers a critique of the racist, ableist, sexist, and heteronormative ideologies prevalent across the history of science, as well as highlighting science performances that challenge and redress these ideologies. Along with its complementary volume From the Curious to the Quantum, this book documents the varied ways in which identity categories and cultural constructs are formed and reformed through science performances.
"List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Taking it to the Streets: Performing Science in Public, Meredith Conti (University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA) and Vivian Appler (College of Charleston, USA) Part I: Building Community and Imagining Worlds through the Science Performance Performance Artists Roundtable, Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan, USA / Artistic Director of The Olimpias), Stephanie Heit (The Olimpias, USA) Lanxing Fu (Co-Director, Superhero Clubhouse, USA), and Jeremy Pickard (Co-Director, Superhero Clubhouse, USA) 1. SF For Many Modernities: Hybridity in the Worlds of Margaret Cavendish and Donna Haraway, Vivian Appler (College of Charleston, USA) 2. Cultivating Ensembles: A Relational Reflection on Creating Cultural Transformation with New Performances of Science, Raquell M. Holmes (Founder, Improvscience /Arizona State University, USA) 3. Shadow Ecologies: Shadow Puppets as Science Performance, Alison Dell (St. Francis College, USA / Co-Founder, Art in the Lab), Stephanie Dowdy-Nava (Co-Founder, ART±BIO Collaborative / Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA), Armando de la Torre (Independent Artist / former ART±BIO Cultivo), and Saúl S. Nava (Co-Founder, ART±BIO Collaborative / Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA) Creative Interlude: ""Absence,"" ""Richard Has Gone Fishing"" and ""Bioengineered Life Lungs"", Kate Gillespie (SUNY Cobleskill, USA) Part 2: Performing Science in the Public Laboratory 4. A Lecture on Heads and Lectures with Skulls – Performance Transmutations, Marlis Schweitzer (York University, Canada) 5. Performing Paleontology at the Natural History Museum, Shelby Brewster (Michigan State University, USA) 6. Ether, Sawdust, Sweat, and Blood: Towards a Dramaturgy of Smells in Victorian Operating Theatres, Meredith Conti (University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA) Creative Interlude: Morehu & Titi, David Geary (Capilano University, Canada) Part 3: Experimentation, Exhibition, and Ethics 7. Anatomical Acts: Minstrelsy and Nineteenth-Century Performances of Popular Anatomy, Mia Levenson (Tufts University, USA) 8. Staging Science and Humanity in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest, Radhica Ganapathy (West Virginia University, USA) 9. Do Goats Have a Right to Cigarettes? A Cross-Disciplinary Investigation of the Ethics of Non-Human Animal Performances, Jennifer A. Kokai (Weber State University, USA) and Lauren Kokai (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Science Communicators Roundtable, Raven Baxter ('Raven the Science Maven', Founder, STEMbassy, USA), Katherine Inderbitzen (Nautilus Live: Ocean Exploration Trust), and Sahana Srinivasan (Host of Netflix’s STEAM children’s series Brainchild / actor, comedian, and filmmaker) Selected Bibliography Index"
Vivian Appler is Associate Professor of Theatre at the College of Charleston, USA. She has published scholarship at the intersection of science and performance in Global Performance Studies, Theatre History Studies, and other journals. She is a former fellow of Fulbright and the Huntington Library, USA. Meredith Conti is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA. She is the author of Playing Sick: Performance of Illness in the Age of Victorian Medicine (2018) and the co-editor (along with Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.) of Theatre and the Macabre (2021).
