Acts of Hope and Despair:
Affective Politics in Egyptian Youth Theatre and Video Blogs
Professor Sonali Pahwa
Affective Politics in Egyptian Youth Theatre and Video Blogs
Professor Sonali Pahwa
Friday Dec. 14th 3-4:30pm Rarig 275
Performance on stage and online was a means of action for Egyptian youth who despaired of political activism before the revolution. They kept alive social and political critique in the form of dramatic affects that became iconic of youthful hope against hope. Two plays about the alienation of Egyptian youth from television ideology embodied the despair of marginalized youth in narratives charged with political anger. More recent video blogs by young women created spaces for political satire and activist speeches, likewise pointing offstage to reach their conclusion. This paper examines the politics of affect in theatrical and digital performance, tracing the transformation of live performance as a staging ground for political affect in a time of revolution.
Bio: Sonali Pahwa is a Lecturer in Liberal Arts at Northwestern University in Qatar. She gained a PhD in cultural anthropology from Columbia University with a thesis on youth theatre in Egypt, and has taught performance studies at UCLA and anthropology at Northwestern University-Quatar. She is completing a book manuscript titled Theatres of Citizenship: Youth, Performance and Identity in Egypt.
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