Dr. Vivian M. Patraka
Director, Institute for Culture and Society
Professor, English & American Culture Studies

vpatrak@bgsu.edu

Office: 127 College Park Off Bldg
Phone: 419-372-0565

Degrees and Institutions:

Ph.D., University of Michigan
M.A., University of Michigan
B.A., Brooklyn College

Courses Regularly Taught: Key Debates in Cultural Studies (ACS 7500); Contemporary Ethnic American Drama and Performance; Contemporary Drama/Theatre/Performance; Modern American, British, Irish, and Continental Drama; Feminist Theory and Theatre; Women Playwrights, Performance Artists, and Visual Artists; Contemporary Political Theatre; American Culture Studies; Research and Professional Writing.

Area: 

Research Interests: Modern and contemporary theatre and drama; feminist studies: cultural theory in relation to theatre, performance and visual art; performance studies: theatre and public spectacle with a focus on fascism, genocide, public discourse, and museums

Recent Publications:

Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust (Indiana University Press, 1999).

Signs of Life: Comedies of Menace by Joan Schenkar, edited by Vivian Patraka, (Wesleyan U Press, 1998) 285 pages. Author of Introduction, xi-xvi.

"Situating Genocide and Difference: The Cultural Performance of the Term Holocaust in U.S. Public Discourse," Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies , eds. Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin (U of Minnesota Press, 1997) 54-78.

"Spectacles of Suffering: Performing Presence, Absence, and Historical Memory at U.S. Holocaust Museums," Performance and Cultural Politics , ed. Elin Diamond(Routledge, 1996) 89-107.

"Local Struggles/ Partial Explanations: Producing Feminist Theory in the Classroom," with Ellen Berry, for Changing Classroom Practices: Resources for Literary and Cultural Studies , ed. David Downing (NCTE, 1994) 122-148.

"Robbie McCauley: Obsessing in Public" The Drama Review (Vol. 37, #4, [T138] 1993) 25-55.

"Split Britches in Little Women (The Tragedy) : Staging Censorship, Nostalgia, and Desire," The Kenyon Review (Vol. XV, #2, 1993) 6-13, followed by my edited text of Little Women (The Tragedy) 14-26.

"Pain, Passion, and Parody: A Dialogue," with Jill Dolan, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (Vol. 8, #1, 1993) 83-99.

"Fascist Ideology and Theatricalization," Critical Theory and Performance , eds. Janelle Reinelt and Joseph Roach (U of Michigan Press, 1992) 336-349.

"Binary Terror and Feminist Performance: Reading Both Ways," Discourse , "Performance Issue(s)" issue (Vol. 14, #2, 1992) 163-185.

"Feminism and the Jewish Subject in the Plays of Sachs, Atlan, and Schenkar," Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre , ed. Sue Ellen Case (Johns Hopkins, 1990) 160-174.

"Mass Culture and Metaphors of Menace in Joan Schenkar's Plays," Making a Spectacle: Feminist Essays on Contemporary Women's Theatre , ed. Lynda Hart (U of Michigan Press: 1989) 25-40.

"Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine: Realism, Gender and Historical Crisis," Modern Drama (Vol. 32, #1, 1989) 128-145.

"Contemporary Drama, Fascism, and the Holocaust," Theatre Journal
(Vol. 39, #1, 1987) 65-77.

"Staging Memory: Contemporary Plays by Women," Michigan Quarterly Review
(Vol. 24, #1, 1987) 285-292.

Sam Shepard , with Mark Siegel, Western Writers Series (Boise State University, 1985) 1-50.

"Notes on Technique in Feminist Drama: Apple Pie and Signs of Life," Women & Performance, A Journal of Feminist Theory (Vol. 1, #2, 1984) 58-72, followed by my edited text of Apple Pie, 73-132.

Feminist Re-Visions: What Has Been and Might Be , co-edited with Louise A. Tilly (U of Michigan, 1983) 335 pages. Author of Introduction, 1-9.

Awards and Honors:

2000: Honorable mention, Joe A. Callaway Prize for Best Book on Drama & Theatre in 1999 through 2000, NYU, and Honorable mention, Barnard Hewitt Book Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History and Studies for 1999, American Society for Theatre Research

1998: Project Director, "Gomez-Pena/Sifuentes Lecture and Performance," Ohio Humanities Council

1991: NEH Fellow, Summer Seminar on Performance Theory, Modern Drama & Postmodern Theatre, with Herbert Blau, Center for Twentieth Century Studies, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

1989: Kentucky Foundation for Women grant for a Summer Writers Residency at Wolf Pen Women Writers Colony for five feminist theatre scholars

1989: Jerome Foundation Fellowship, Theatre Scholar in Residence at New Dramatists organization for playwrights, New York

1985: NEH Fellow, Summer Seminar on Fascism as a Generic Phenomenon, Yale University