Jon McKenzie

Visiting Associate Professor
608-262-2219
www.english.wisc.edu/mckenzie
jvmckenzie@wisc.edu

Degrees and Institutions

PhD, Performance Studies, New York University, 1996
MA, English, University of Florida, 1987
BFA, Fine Arts, University of Florida. 1984

Research Interests

Experimental performance, performance theory, new media, digital pedagogy

Books

I am the author of Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance (Routledge, 2001), which has recently been translated and published in Croatia as Izvedi ili Snosi Posljedice: Od Discipline do Izvedbe. My present book project focuses on different modes of performative power operative in the contemporary world.

Editions

I am currently co-editing two projects. The collection Contesting Performance: Global Genealogies of Research is forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan and co-edited with Heike Roms and Wan-ling Wee. Also forthcoming is a special issue of Frakcija, a Croatian performance journal, which explores visibility, civil liberties, and global security. It is co-edited with artist Lane Hall.

Articles

My essays explore a wide range of topics, including performance and globalization, new media and teaching, and emerging forms of electronic civil disobedience, and I am fortunate to have been translated into several languages. My recent texts include “Abu Ghraib and the Society of the Spectacle of the Scaffold,” on the meditated theatricality of psychological torture; “StudioLab UMBRELLA,” which traces the development of the pedagogy I call “StudioLab;” “Global Feeling: (Almost) All You Need is Love,” on the ability of performance and media to help “design experience” on a global scale; and on the application of performance measures in higher education.

Teaching

I teach courses on performance, new media, cultural theory, and civil disobedience. I have also created StudioLab, an emergent pedagogy that combines critical analysis and creative work in design and new media.