In this episode, guest host Stevie Scheurich speaks with Dr. Angela Ahlgren, professor of theatre and film at BGSU, and Dr. Kareem Khubchandani, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Tufts University, about how their lives as performers and professors inform each other. Angela and Kareem discuss their research as both performers and performance studies scholars exploring how political, economic, and transnational power structures shape individual and communal performances of racial, gendered, and sexual identities.
Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Stevie:Welcome back to the BiG Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and the school of media and communication at Bowling Green State University. I am Stevie Scheurichm, A PhD student in BGSU's American Culture Studies program and a graduate assistant at the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society. Due to the ongoing pandemic we are not recording in the studio, ultimately by phone and computer. As always the opinions expressed on this podcast are those are the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University, and its campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the Lower Great Lakes region.Stevie:This land is a home land of the Wyandot, Kickapoo, Miami Potawatomi, Odawa and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts toward decolonizing history and we honor the indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time in memorial. Today we are joined by Dr. Kareem Khubchandani and Dr. Angela Ahlgren. Kareem is a Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor in theater, dance and performance studies and women's gender and sexuality studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Ishtyle, Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife, co-editor of Queer Nightlife and creator of criticalauntystudies.com. Kareem is currently working on two new book projects, Decolonize Drag and Ontologies, Queer Aesthetics and South Asian Aunties.Stevie:Kareem has just finished a digital residency at BGSU, including a critical drag workshop and a lecture entitled Divas, Drag Queens, Aunties and other academic personas. Angela is an assistant professor and graduate coordinator in the department of theater and film at Bowling Green State University. She is the author of Drumming Asian America, Taiko, Performance and Cultural Politics, which focuses on the racial, gender, and cultural politics woven into the practice and performance of taiko, Japanese ensemble drumming in the US and Canada. Her research interests include Asian American theater and performance, critical dance studies, queer and feminist theater and performance, and the politics of mourning. Thank you both so much for joining today.Angela:Thank you. Kareem:Thank you. Stevie: So we'll just start by doing some introductions. Kareem, you're a scholar of performance studies and a performer yourself. Can you give us a little background about what it is that you study, who you study, how you study and how do you see your identities as an academic and a performer sort of entwined?Kareem:So my recent book is a study of nightlife in LGBT communities, primarily gay male communities in India and in the south Asian diaspora. And it looks at how people move across national borders and are forced to move across national borders by economic projects of globalization. And it thinks about how nightlife and queer nightlife spaces offer these migrant subjects, places to practice their identities and places to feel beautiful and places to find desire and love. It's somewhat of a reenactment of my own journey moving to
