UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Of the many performances, talks, and roundtables at Global Flashpoints, The Wife’s Letter and a seminar led by Bishnupriya Dutt specifically addressed questions of race, gender, power, patriarchy, nationalism, and colonialism, and how these issues and others can and should be explored within a transnational context. The first event of the series was a performance of The Wife’s Letter, followed by a discussion with the director and actors moderated by Anurima Banerji, Assistant Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. On October 11, Bishnupriya Dutt, Professor of Theatre History in the Schoolof Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and coauthor of Engendering Performance: Indian Women Performers in Search of an Identity, held a seminar on dance and acting in Indian theater. Both events addressed issues of gender andperformance, the colonial and nationalist history of India as related to theater practices, barriers of language and culture, and, more broadly, the effects of holding events such as Global Flashpoints.