Unfolding the Baroque: Extensions of a Concept

VPS Visual and Performance Studies FRA
Director: Catherine M. Soussloff, UC Presidential Chair and Professor HAVC

Advisory Committee: Karen Bassi, Literature and Classics; Don Brenneis, Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology; Mark Franko, Theater Arts and Dance Studies; Boreth Ly, HAVC; Tyrus Miller, Literature and Modern and Avant-Garde Studies; Deanna Shemek, Literature and Italian Studies; Nina Treadwell, Music.

UC Presidential Chair Research Assistant in VPS: Trevor Sangrey, Graduate Student, History of Consciousness

Webmaster: Lucian Gomoll, Ph.D. Candidate, History of Consiousness

History and Future Plans
VPS has been in existence since 1996 as a faculty and graduate student research activity devoted to bringing interdisciplinary activities in the arts, humanities, and social sciences into visibility at UCSC. Today it serves as a collaborative research and programming "think tank" for faculty and graduates from 13 departments. Initially, it fostered and proposed an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program. VPS seeks to engage everyone on campus involved in the broad fields that converge in the terms Visual Studies and Performance Studies, including visuality and performativity in the media of images, artifacts, texts, and performances. New approaches across the presently constituted boundaries of disciplines and geographies are stressed. Conferences and seminars proposed by members generate a dialogic relationship at the intersections of performance and the visual in order to foster thinking for the VPS participants and to present original research to the UCSC campus community.

VPS is dedicated to the support of graduate students and faculty engaged in research and writing on any area of visual and performance studies, including dance, texts, digital new media, moving image media, and works of art.

***Based on the success of its programs and publications, VPS faculty hope that a funded MRU or ORU in the form of a Center for Visual and Performance Studies might emerge in the near future, thereby solidifying both its internal and extra-mural presence in order to establish a prominent place for research in the Arts at UCSC.

Publications directly generated by VPS Research and Programming
The Ends of Interdisciplinarity, Edited by Catherine M. Soussloff, in progress (10 essays with contributions by Louis Menand, Harvard University and UCSC faculty and graduate students)

Ritual and Event: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Edited by Mark Franko, London: Routledge Press, 2006. (10 essays with contributions by Mark Franko, Tyrus Miller, Andrew Wegley, Catherine Soussloff)

"Visual and Performance Studies: A New History of Interdisciplinarity," (Co-Authored by Catherine Soussloff and Mark Franko) Social Text 73 (Winter 2002): 29-46.

Acting on the Past: Historical Performance Across the Disciplines, Edited by Mark Franko and Annette Richards, Wesleyan University Press, 1999. (11 essays with contributions by Karen Bassi, Carolyn Dean, Mark Franko, Catherine Soussloff)

Graduate and Undergraduate Student Support from VPS
Trevor Sangrey, History of Consciousness, (2007-present, 3 quarters/yr + summers RA)
Nicole Archer, History of Consciousness, (Summer 2007 RA)
Andrew Wegley, History of Consciousness PhD (2005-07, 3 quarters/yr + summers RA)
Jodi Waynberg, HAVC major, (2005-07 occasional RA)
Alan Tollefson, DANM MFA student, research funds given for thesis research (Fall 2006)
Margaretha Haughwought, DANM MFA student, research funds for final thesis project (Spring 2008)
Daniel Munoz, Music Ph.D. student, funds for purchase of books (Winter 2009)
Miki Foster, DANM MFA student, funds for purchase of books (Winter 2009)
Others not included here

Funding
Internal Funding Sources:
University of California Humanities Research Institute Major Conference Grant (2008-09 $5000)
UC Presidential Chair in HAVC (beginning Fall 2006)
Arts Research Institute (beginning Fall 2004: For 2007-08 $9000 awarded)
Arts Division Dean's Office (2008-09 Matching funds for UCHRI Major Conference Grant)
Cowell College (beginning Fall 2004)
Modern and Avant-Garde Studies (beginning Fall 2003)
HAVC Department (annually $450)
Literature Department (approximately $200 annually)
Theater Arts Department (approximately $500 annually)
Porter College (approximately $200 annually)
Associate Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs (for Ph.D. program seed funding)
Vice Chancellor for Research (2008-09 Matching funds for UCHRI Major Conference grant; 2000-01 for Ph.D. program seed funding)

External Funding Sources:
Fulbright Fellowship Program, Post-Doctoral Fellow from Slovakia affiliated with VPS (Winter and Spring 2009)
France-Berkeley Fund with Ecole des Hautes-Etudes ($8000)
Getty Grant Program (two Collaborative Grant proposals @ $350,000/ea. one denied for lack of institutional matching funds)
External Donors under development by Director

Selected Summary of Recent Activities
April 2009 VPS Conference:
Unfolding the Baroque: Extensions of a Concept

2008-09 VPS Seminar Series: Voices for Visual and Performance Studies Speakers from UC Santa Cruz: Brandin Nusbaum, Theater Arts; Derek Murray, Art; Jeffrey Lieber, HAVC; Yiman Wang, Film; Soraya Murray, HAVC and DANM Tanja Klemm, Brandenberg Academy Sciences, Berlin

Winter 2008: Graduate Seminar Sponsored by VPS and offered by Cowell College, Instructor: Catherine M. Soussloff; other faculty: Karen Bassi, Literature; Mark Franko, Theater Arts; Nina Treadwell, Music: "Embodiment: Visuality and Performance" (12 graduate students from 5 departments and programs in three divisions enrolled)

2007-08 VPS Seminar Series: Visual Histories/Performance Histories Speakers: Thierry Du Duve, U of Lille, France; Anne Wagner, UCB; Tom Cummins, Harvard U; Ales Erejevic, Slovenia Academy of Science and Art; Wessel Krul, U of Groningen; Larry Rinder, California College Arts; Judith Rodenbeck, Sarah Lawrence.

2006-07 VPS Seminar Series: Performing Spaces
Speakers: Shelia Crane UCSC; Kaja Silverman UCB, William Tronzo, UCSD, Gabriele Brandstetter, Frei University, Berlin; Nina Treadwell, UCSC; Michael Kelly, U North Carolina, Charlotte; Clorinda Donato, CSU Long Beach; Kimberly Jannarone, UCSC; David Antin, UCSD.

2006-07 VPS Conference: The Ends of Interdisciplinarity Speakers: Karen Barad, Feminist Studies, UCSC; Karen Bassi, Literature, UCSC; Don Brenneis, Anthropology, UCSC; Sheila Crane, HAVC, UCSC, Gina Dent, Feminist Studies, UCSC; Mark Franko, Theater Arts, UCSC; Lisbeth Haas, History, UCSC; Randy Martin, Art & Public Policy, NYU; Louis Menand, English, Harvard; Tyrus Miller, Literature, UCSC; Carrie Noland, French & Italian, UCI; Jenny Reardon, Sociology, UCSC; Deanna Shemek, Literature, UCSC; Catherine Soussloff, History of Art & Visual Culture, UCSC; Andrew Wegley, History of Consciousness, UCSC.

2005-06 VPS Seminar Series: Visualities/Geographies II

2004-05 VPS Seminar Series: Visualities/Geographies I

2003-04 VPS Conference: Authoritarian Spectacles in Inter-War Europe

2003-04 VPS Lectures/Performances: Yvonne Rainer: An Evening of Sixties Films and Commentary Co-sponsored with Stanford University, Mellon Workshop on "Politics of Action: Art in the Public Sphere, Stanford Humanities Center"

2003-04 VPS Seminar Series: Visual Politics in History

2002-03 VPS Conference: Post-Ritual: Events/Performances/Art International Conference with Ecole des Hautes-Etudes

2002-03 VPS Seminar Series: Movement, Community, and Ideologies of the Visual (Germany 1920-1940)

Prior to 2002-03, annual speaker series continue back to 1996-97

Please direct questions to Catherine Soussloff or Trevor Sangrey at: VPSucsc@gmail.com