Interview with José Muñoz : what is performance studies?.

Interview with José Muñoz, conducted by Diana Taylor, founding director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. This interview is a part of a series curated by the Hemispheric Institute, articulated around the question 'What is Performance Studies?' The series aims to provide a multifaceted approach to the often difficult task of defining the coordinates of both a field of academic study as well as a lens through which to assess and document cultural practice and embodied behavior. The contingent definitions documented in this series are based on the groundbreaking experiences and the scholarly endeavors of renowned figures in contemporary performance studies and practice. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics

José Esteban Muñoz (born 1967) is an American theorist in the fields of Performance Studies, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory. He received his undergraduate education at Sarah Lawrence College and his doctorate from the Graduate Program in Literature at Duke University, where he studied under the tutelage of queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. He has written about important artists, performers, and cultural figures including Vaginal Davis, Nao Bustamante, Carmelita Tropicana, Isaac Julien, Kevin Aviance, James Schuyler, and Andy Warhol. His book Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999) is a foundational text in queer of color critique, and a major contribution to minority scholarship in the field of Performance Studies. He has also co-edited Pop Out: Queer Warhol (1996) with Jennifer Doyle and Jonathan Flatley and Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America (1997) with Celeste Fraser Delgado. His most recent book, Cruising Utopia, was published in Fall 2009 by NYU Press. He is currently completing another book manuscript, Feeling Brown: Ethnicity, Affect, and Performance, which is forthcoming from Duke University. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics