Serap Erincin

Assistant Professor - Performance Studies

Cultural Studies, Media Studies
Assistant Professor of Performance Studies
Affiliated Faculty, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Interdisciplinary Program
Affiliated Faculty, Screen Arts Program
Affiliate Faculty, Department of African & African American Studies
Affiliate Faculty, Multidisciplinary Initiative for Neuroscience Discovery

Ph.D.: Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Postdoc: Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Penn State
Postdoc: Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow, USF
M.A.: Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University M.A.: Translation Studies/Performance Translation, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey
B.A.: Western Languages and Literatures/English Literature, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey
Pedagogical Training, MSGSU
Diploma: Acting and Directing, Studio for Actors and Art
Phone:  225-578-6813
Office:  227 Coates Hall
E-mail:  seraperincin@lsu.edu
Pronouns: she/they/sie/zie/ze/xe

 

Biography

Serap Erincin is an artist scholar and cultural and media critic from Istanbul. Her research, creative practice, and teaching consistently deal with considerations of affect in social justice and experimental performance. She teaches and writes about how art, media, and public performances (e.g. protests) pose questions on otherness and identity regarding global issues such as class conflict, poverty, lack of free speech and how they act as a tool for social change. Her work persistently focuses on questions of home, belonging, and exclusion regarding minoritized identities to bring further visibility to global injustices through art and scholarship. Her courses and publications also examine the role new technologies and digital media play in advancing innovative techniques in contemporary performance, address internationally resonant topics such as displacement due to war or environmental catastrophes, and discuss infringements of human rights – especially violations towards minorities. Her creative research and practice in multimedia art and performance also engage issues of social justice and environmental concerns while employing cutting edge methodologies.

She is the recipient of many awards and fellowships and has presented her scholarship, live performances, and multimedia installations internationally on five continents and publishes widely on experimental performance and social justice performance. Her numerous articles appeared in prestigious international journals such as Performance Research, Dance Chronicle, Word and Text, and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies among others and scholarly books such as Theatre and Media,

Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage, and Théâtre et intermédialité. She is also the editor of the book Solum and Other Plays from Turkey and a special issue of Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies on silent and still resistance. Her translations include Sylmarillon and other works by J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton. She curated several symposiums and the Neurohumanities Initiative and Salons. She is currently working on three book projects, a monograph at the intersection of technology, science and the posthuman on psychophysical methods in experimental performance, another scholarly book at the intersection of social justice movements, ecology, and science studies on transglobal nonviolent protest performances, and a book documenting multimedia performances on social and environmental justice .

A writer, director, performer, and multimedia artist, she also has an extensive background in print and broadcast journalism having worked as a producer, editor, and reporter for major international networks such as CNBC and BBC World Service creating news and feature programs for TV and Radio with a specialty in arts and politics.

She worked with some of the most renowned companies and directors, both experimental and mainstream, in Istanbul and toured all over Turkey before moving first to London, UK, and then to New York where she continued to collaborate with theatre professionals and designed and developed original work while also pursuing her academic career. The plays she wrote and directed include Ofelias, Atrocity Boulevard, Connected, Inside “Out,” and Suppression of Absence. She was a resident artist at venues such as Catwalk Institute and the Borland Gallery. The installations in her solo exhibition Human Rights/Human Rites focus on the Syrian refugee crisis and the death penalty. Her multimedia installations such as Apex and Noah 0.2 degrees juxtapose social issues with narratives about endangered species.

Research Interests

Her areas of interest include social justice performance, human rights, activism, environmental performance and ecology, performance and technology, performance and science, feminist performance, women of color feminisms, decolonial and postcolonial theory, transnational performance, theories of directing and performing, performance and senses, documentary film and performance, performing fiction, autoethnography, and science fiction film.

Teaching

She teaches graduate seminars such as Contemporary Theories in Performance Studies, Theories of Performing Protest, Radical Feminist Performance, and Performing Human Rights and courses such as Performance of Everyday Life, Performance and Technology, Performance Art, Performing

Identities, Middle Eastern Performance, Women’s and Gender Studies, Intercultural Communication, Documentary Film and Performance, Performing Activism and has previously taught courses in Drama, Theatre Arts, Interpersonal Communication and various workshops such as Devising with Digital Media.

Selected Awards and Fellowships

Performance Studies International’s Dwight Conquergood Award, David Keller Award by the American Society Theatre for Research, the American Theatre and Drama Society’s Emerging Scholar Award, multiple top paper awards from the National Communication Association’s Performance Studies Division and its Theatre, Film, and Multimedia Division, NYU Robert Corrigan Fellowship, Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of London Visiting Fellowship, USF Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, a grant from the Catwalk Institute, a bursary from the International Federation for Theatre Research, Mellon Boundaries grant, Harvard University Mellon School of Theatre and Performance Fellowship

Selected Publications

Books

Serap Erincin (Ed.) Solum and Other Plays from Turkey. London: Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press.
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo11456500.html

Journal Issues

Serap Erincin. Guest Editor, Special issue of Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies on “Resistance and Stillness” Vol. 12, No.3.

Articles

20. Serap Erincin "Performing the Other: Posthumanism and Mediatized Senses in The Wooster
Group's The Room" Forthcoming, Modern Drama. Vol. 65, No 2 (2022)*

19. Serap Erincin "Sufi Dance, Trance, and Psychophysical Theater: Transcultural Elements in
Jerzy Grotowski's Theater" Dance Chronicle. Vol. 44, No 3. pp. 207-222 (2021).*
https://doi.org/10.1080/01472526.2021.1982330

18. Serap Erincin "Fictocriticism, Futurity, and Critical Imagination: Writing Stories as Activism"
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. Vol. 8, No 3. pp. 342-343 (2021). *
https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2021.1960693

17. Serap Erincin “Imagined Communities Before the End of the World: The Liberation of
Marginalized Beings” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. Vol. 8, No 3. pp. 339-341
(2021). *
https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2021.1954217

16. Serap Erincin "Telling Dark Stories, Performing Dark Ecologies: The Matter of 0.2 degrees"
Global Performance Studies. Vol 4, No 1. (2021). *
https://doi.org/10.33303/gpsv4n1a12

15. Serap Erincin "Ecological Homeostasis" Global Performance Studies. Vol 4, No 1. (2021). *
https://doi.org/10.33303/gpsv4n1a13

14. Bryan J. McCann, Serap Erincin, Ashley Noel Mack, William O. Saas “When We Come
Together, We Build Theory: Working the Second Shift in the Undercommon Enclave”
Journal of Autoethnography. Vol. 2, No 1. pp. 113-118 (2021). *
https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2021.2.1.113

13. Serap Erincin “Decolonizing Identity in Performance: Claiming My Mother Tongue in
Suppression of Absence” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies Vol. 41, No. 1. pp. 179-195
(2020) *
https://doi.org/10.5250/fronjwomestud.41.1.0179

12. Serap Erincin “The Force That Sustains: Theatricality and Intermediality in the work of The
Wooster Group” Performance Research Vol. 24, No. 4. pp. 44-52 (2019) *
https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1641322

11. Serap Erincin “Digital Media and Performance Activism: Technology, Biopolitics, and New
Tools of Transnational Resistance” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies Vol. 12, No.3.
pp. 1-12 (2016) *
http://liminalities.net/12-3/newtools.pdf

10. Serap Erincin “On Minorities, Silence, Stillness, and Resistance” Liminalities: A Journal of
Performance Studies Vol. 12, No.3. pp. 1-7 (2016). *
http://liminalities.net/12-3/introduction.pdf

9. Serap Erincin “«Reperformer» Hamlet: definer la reperformabilité à l’aide des methods du
Wooster Group” Théâtre et intermédialité. Ed. Jean-Marc Larrue. Lille: Presses Universitaires
du Septentrion, pp. 128-143. (2015).*
http://www.septentrion.com/en/livre/?GCOI=27574100313200&fa=author&Person_ID=12332
ISBN-102757409077

8. Serap Erincin “Dance in Translation: Subjectivity, Failed Spectatorship and Tolerance” Word and
Text: A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics. 2: pp. 156-170. (2012).*
ISSN 2069-9271; online ISSN 2247-9163

7. Serap Erincin “Performing Rebellion: Eurydice’s Cry in Turkey” Antigone on the Contemporary
World Stage. Eds. Erin Mee, Helene Foley. London: Oxford University Press, pp. 171-184.
(2011).*
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/antigone-on-the-contemporary-world-stage-9780199586196?cc=us&lang=en&
ISBN: 9780199586196

6. Serap Erincin “Introduction to Solum and Other Plays from Turkey” Solum (Ed.) Serap Erincin.
London: Seagull Books/ University of Chicago Press, pp. 7-27. (2011). *
ISBN-10 : 9780857420015

5. Serap Erincin “East Meets West: On honor killings and The Beauty Inside” Silence of God and
Other Plays. Catherine Filloux. London: Seagull Books, pp. 53-61. (2009). *
ISBN-10: 1906497109

Serap Erincin “Towards a Rich Theatre: Where Does the Wooster Group Take Technology?
Where Does Technology Take Theatre Performance?” Theater und Medien/Theatre and Media.
Ed. Henri Schoenmakers et.al. Bielefeld: transcript:Erlangen, pp. 417-425.(2008). *
https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/467280
ISBN: 9783839410646

3. Serap Erincin “Queer Film Festivals.” Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture.
Ed. David Gerstner. New York: Routledge, pp. 215-217. (2006) *
https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-International-Encyclopedia-of-Queer-Culture/Gerstner/p/book/9780415569668
ISBN: 9780415569668

Review Essays and Entries

Serap Erincin “Fear of Darkness, Studio Players, Istanbul

• Time’s Running Out 1- “Sinful is the Time”, Bilsak
• Inside Out; Marika’s Tale, choreography by Talin Buyukkurkciyan
• harS, choreography by Ayse Orhon
• Sixteenth International Istanbul Theatre Festival.” Theatre Journal 61:1, Spring: 114-117.” (2009)

https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2007.0107

Serap Erincin “ Eurydice’s Cry, Studio Players, Istanbul

• A Play for Two, Dot Tiyatrosu
• Misfit, Emre Koyuncuoglu
• Solum, choreography by Mustafa Kaplan
• 15th Istanbul International Theatre Festival.” Theatre Journal 59:2, Spring 2007: 296-299. (2007)

https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2007.0107

Serap Erincin “Queer Film Festivals.” Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture. Ed. David Gerstner. New York: Routledge, pp. 215-217. (2006)

Literary Translations

Serap Erincin and Mark Ventura (trans.) All the plays in Solum and Other Plays from Turkey (Ed.)

Serap Erincin. London: Seagull Books/ University of Chicago Press. (2011).

As on the Page, Murathan Mungan

Avalanche, Tuncel Cucenoglu

For Rent, Ozen Yula

Eurydice’s Cry, Sahika Tekand Home Sweet Home, Emre Koyuncuoglu Solum, Mustafa Kaplan.

Serap Erincin (trans.) Translator to Turkish. Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien. Istanbul: 6.45 Altıkırkbeş

Books. (2001).

Serap Erincin (trans.) Translator to Turkish. On Fairy Tales, J.R.R Tolkien. Istanbul: 6.45

Altıkırkbeş Books. (2000).

Serap Erincin (trans.) Translator to Turkish. Masallar: Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle, Smith of

Wooten Major, J.R.R. Tolkien. Istanbul: 6.45 Altıkırkbeş Books. (1999).

Serap Erincin (trans.) Translator to Turkish. The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton. Istanbul:

Mitos Books. (1996).

CREATIVE WORK AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH (Sample List)

Multimedia Performance, Installation, and Visual Art:

Serap Erincin (Concept and Installation) Noah/0.2 degrees. Video installation
(July 2019) Calgary, Canada.

Serap Erincin (Conceived and Performed by) The Count. Durational performance (March 2019)
Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX

Serap Erincin (Writer and Director) Serap Erincin. Ofelias. Theatre performance. (March 2019)
Hopkins Black Box Theatre, LA.

Serap Erincin (Concept and Installation) Time of Your Life. Interactive video installation. (2017
reperformance 2018). Aarhus, Denmark

Serap Erincin (Concept and Installation) Apex. Interactive multimedia installation. (2018). Daegu
Arts Factory, Daegu, Korea.

Serap Erincin (Writer and Director) Serap Erincin. Atrocity Boulevard. Theatre performance / Solo
Performance.
Funded and presented at The State Theatre, PA with support from the Boundaries
project Andrew B. Mellon grant and Institute for the Arts and Humanities
Fellowship. (2017)

Artistic Research Program for the Opening of the International Symposium
Boundaries of the Human in the Age of the Life Sciences (2017)
Produced by and premiered at the International Istanbul Theatre Festival and
festival partners. The French Institute Theatre (2009).
http://tiyatro.iksv.org/en/archive/festivalarchive/201/122

Interview with the artist as featured guest of Radio Program:
http://acikradyo.com.tr/acik-bilinc/aktivizm-olarak-sanat (2017)
Feature and interview with the artist on CNN Feature and interview with the artist on CNBC
Feature and interview with the artist on NTV Feature and interview with the artist on Theatre Journal (Turkey)

Serap Erincin (Writer and Director) Serap Erincin and Mark Ventura (Co-creators). Suppression of
Absence. Multimedia Theatre Performance. (2017) Solo performance, devised with
support from the Boundaries project Andrew B. Mellon grant and Institute for the
Arts and Humanities Fellowship.

Serap Erincin Human Rights/ Human Rites (2017).

Solo Exhibition at Borland Gallery, University Park, PA February – March ‘17

Serap Erincin (Designed and devised) Polaroid. Multimedia performance. Ljubljana City Museum,
Ljubljana, Slovenia. (2016)

Serap Erincin (Writer and Director) Connected. Devised Play/ Performance. Lower East Side
Festival of the Arts (2006) produced by the Theatre for the New City.

Serap Erincin (Writer and Director) Inside “Out”. Devised Play/ Performance. Invited to be part of
the “Director’s Night” at and produced by the BRIC. (2004).
http://bricartsmedia.org/performing-arts/onstage-bric-archive/spring-2004/

Entire performance and artist interview produced as a feature documentary and broadcast by BRIC
TV as the sole subject of feature program. https://www.bricartsmedia.org/

JOURNALISM and MEDIA PUBLICATIONS (Sample List)

(Extensive list of extended Radio, TV, and print pieces available upon request. Produced hundreds
of Radio and TV broadcast feature programs, extended segments, longform stories,
documentary features. Published and broadcast hundreds of articles features on
political, environmental issues, arts and culture stories, coverage and reviews of
many international festivals and political events, interviews with artists and
companies, other well-known figures, arts administrators, activists, and politicians,
and members of the public)

Serap Erincin “They Are All Robbed of Their Innocence: On Mystic River, and an interview with
director Clint Eastwood and the Cast” Radikal, 10/25/2003

Serap Erincin “Performances All Along the Streets” Radikal, 11/08/2003

Serap Erincin “On Distant, and an interview with writer, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Muzaffer
Özdemir” Radikal, 11/01/2003.

Serap Erincin “Drawn to the dark side: An interview with Johnny Depp” Sinema 02/01/2002

Serap Erincin “After the 20th Istanbul Film Festival and an interview with the director Hulya
Ucansu” Guncel CNBC-e 05/01/2001

Serap Erincin “Always after the risky thing: An interview with Albert and Allen Hughes” Guncel
CNBC-e 11/01/2001

Serap Erincin “Following the Ripper: On From Hell” Sinema 10/01/2001

Serap Erincin, Arts Feature Program on works of Pina Bausch, Pedro Almodovar, and festivals
BBC World Service Radio, 2003

Serap Erincin, Arts Feature Program on works of Thessaloniki Film Festival and Book Crossing
BBC World Service Radio, 2002

Serap Erincin, Arts Feature Program on the work of Arif Mardin and Berlin Film Festival BBC
World Service Radio, 2003

Serap Erincin, Arts Feature Program on International Istanbul Jazz Festival BBC World Service
Radio, 2003

Serap Erincin, Arts Feature Program on Bueno Vista Social Club and Cuban musicians BBC World
Service Radio, 2002

Serap Erincin, Longform segment on Greenpeace Activism, Politics, and Human Rights and festivals
BBC World Service Radio, 2003

Serap Erincin, Feature segment on Istanbul Jazz Festival, Interview with Lou Reed, CNBC-e 2001

Serap Erincin, Culture and Arts Program on Venice Film Festival and interview with Johnny Depp
CNBC-e, 2001

Serap Erincin, Feature segment on Souls, flamenco, and interview with Joaquin Cortez

Serap Erincin, Feature segment on and interview with Terry Gilliam NTV- International 1999

Serap Erincin “Dubrovnik Documentary Film Festival” Sinema, 09/01/2001