UCLA Center for the Study of Women

In organizing “Global Flashpoints: Transnational Performance and Politics,” our purpose was to open up aninternational exploration of transnational/global practicesconcerning social organization, gender, and sexualitythrough performances and academic research across avariety of countries and colleges. To that end, we hostedperformances from India, Mexico, Taiwan, and Los Angeles,with themes concerning the abusive practices surroundingthe taking of child brides in The Wife’s Letter, the role ofthe arts in metaphysical discourses and social protests inDialogues Between Darwin and God, deconstructing orientalistfantasies of women in Dancing Mother Courage andThe Good Person, and imagining homoerotic relationshipsbetween slaves in the antebellum South in bonded. Theperformances took place in various sites across the campus,including Royce Hall, Glorya Kaufman hall, and MacGowan.They were attended by students and scholars from UCLA,USC, CSULA, as well as local community members fromvarious ethnic and diasporic communities.