Patrick Anderson
Associate Professor
Director, Critical Gender Studies
Joint appointment, Department of Ethnic Studies
Education
Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley) - Performance Studies;
Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality
M.A. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) - Communication Studies
and Cultural Studies
B.S. (Northwestern University) - Performance Studies and Anthropology
Research
Patrick Anderson works at the interstices of performance studies and cultural studies, focusing in particular on the constitutive role of violence, mortality, and pain in the production and experience of political subjectivity. His work-in-progress includes a mixed-genre book on illness and memory, and a critical study of the role of empathy in contemporary American performance practice and inter-cultural discourse. He is a core member of the UC Office of the President Multi-Campus Research Group on International Culture and Performance
Anderson has worked as a director and actor in theater and film; as an anthropologist in Sri Lanka, Chicago, and New Mexico; and as an activist and organizer for anti-war groups in Sri Lanka, for the Berkeley Free Clinic in California, and for HIV/AIDS groups in various locations in the United States. He has previously taught undergraduate and graduate classes in performance and culture at Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the MFA program at the American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco).
Publications
- So Much Wasted: Hunger, Performance, and the Morbidity of Resistance. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2010.
- Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict (co-edited with Jisha Menon). Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008.
- "There Will Be No Bobby Sands in Guantanamo Bay," PMLA, 2009.
- "Anorexia Nervosa and the Problem of 'Men,'" Women and Performance, 2008.
- "Radical Intimacy: Dwight Conquergood's Classroom," Cultural Studies, 2007.
- "Trying Ordeal: Henry Tanner and Chris Burden in the Event of Subjectivity," Radical History Review, 2007.
- "On Feeding Tubes," TDR, 2005.
- "To Lie Down to Death for Days: The Turkish Hunger Strike, 2000-2003," Cultural Studies, 2004.
Anderson is also a regular contributor to é-misferica, the online journal of the Hemispheric Institute of Politics and Performance, and an Advisory Board member for the journal Women & Performance.
Teaching
Anderson has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Stanford University; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the University of California, Berkeley; Los Medanos College; and the American Conservatory Theater's graduate program. His courses have included studio classes in literature and adaptation, acting, movement, and performance art; seminars in women's studies, queer theory, ethnic studies, and cultural studies; and larger classes in "multicultural" performance, American studies, communication/cultural studies, and visual arts.