Peggy Phelan (born April 23, 1959) is an American
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
scholar. She is one of the founders of Performance Studies International, the former chair of
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
's Department of
Performance Studies
Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world. The term ''performance'' is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, ...
from 1993 to 1996, Stanford's Theatre and Performance Studies Department (then called the Drama Department) from 2007 to 2011, and continues as the Ann O’Day Maples Professor of the Arts, Professor of Theater & Performance Studies and English, and the Denning Family Director of the Stanford Arts Institute.
Phelan's work is primarily concerned with the investigation of performance as a live event. She argued that the ephemerality of performance is crucial to its force. While most of her initial work was rooted in feminist post-structuralism and psychoanalysis, her more recent work is concerned with media, photography, and visual arts. She has written on the selfie, and on Reagan and Warhol. Her most widely recognized essay is "The Ontology of Performance," originally published in Unmarked: the politics of performance (1993).
Select Publications
Phelan, Peggy. Live Art in La: Performance in Southern California, 1970-1983. New York: Routledge, 2012.Reckitt, Helena, and Peggy Phelan. Art and Feminism. London: Phaidon, 2001.Phelan, Peggy, Hans U. Obrist, Elisabeth Bronfen, and Pipilotti Rist. Pipilotti Rist. London: Phaidon, 2001.Phelan, Peggy, and Martin Gustavsson. Martin Gustavsson. Stockholm, 2001.Phelan, Peggy. Special Issue: Narrative and Performance. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2000.Phelan, Peggy, and Jill Lane. The Ends of Performance. New York: New York University Press, 1998.Phelan, Peggy. Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories. London: Routledge, 1997. Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 1993.
Awards
* 2004
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
for Theatre Arts
* Getty Research Fellow 2004-2005
* Stanford Humanities Center, Fellow, 2011–12
* Australian National University Fellow
References
External links
Profile page: Peggy PhelanStanford University
WorldCatProfile page: Peggy Phelan
Stanford University
1948 births
Living people
Feminist studies scholars
Stanford University Department of Drama faculty
Stanford University Department of English faculty
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