I’m very pleased to announce the publication of my essay, “Digital Historiography and Performance” in Theatre Journal 68.4 (December 2016): 507-527. I’ve posted the last proof version in Publications, but the full text version with color images is available here. 
I’ve been working on this piece for a long time, so I’m very glad to see it in print. Many thanks are due to everyone who gave feedback on talks, drafts, and these ideas over the years of its development.
By far my favorite form of intellectual discourse is verbal. Perhaps it’s the repressed performer in me, but I would always prefer to give a talk or seminar and discuss and debate ideas than have to wrestle these ideas into coherent text by myself. (Research and writing are often lonely and dreary, however much I enjoy the topic or ideas.)
Keynote Panel with my favorite surveillancists: James Harding and Elise Morrison
I was very grateful, then, to have had the chance to present and listen (mostly listen!) at a great symposium at Bard College last September: Spectatorship in an Age of Surveillance. Organized by Miriam Felton-Dansky and Jacob Gallagher-Ross, this event continued an ongoing discussion on digital dramaturgies among theater and performance scholars and artists. (See Theater magazine’s issues 42.2 and 44.3 for publications from this ongoing discussion.)
Next up this month, I’m excited to visit the University of Texas at Austin to talk about my ongoing work in digital historiography and performance and to meet with faculty and students investigating digital technologies in culture. We’re placing particular emphasis on gaming and since I’m still working my way through Total War: Empire (and have just downloaded Company of Heroes!) I’m delighted to continue this conversation with colleagues across disciplines (and pick up some ideas and tips along the way). If you’re around the Austin area October 20-21, stop by! Some of this research will be forthcoming in Theatre Journal the special issue: Theatre, the Digital, and the Analysis and Documentation of Performance edited by Joanne Tompkins. Looking forward…
As if the world of performance history and technology weren’t already interesting enough, Google is announcing 360° performance recordings through the Google Cultural Institute. Functioning much like Google street views, these recordings seem to be the next stage in performance recordings and add a new wrinkle to performance history and historiography.
I’ve only just started playing around with the recordings, but aside from consuming a lot of bandwidth (at least as it seems on my current wifi setup–no hard analytics yet), it seems promising.
One weird feature: in at least some of the performances, the audiences are vast and empty.
I’m both excited (and a bit melancholic) to announce that on 17 December, I will deliver the Christmas lecture on “Why Theatre?” at Het Huis. I’m honored to be a part of this great series at Het Huis, one of my favorite performance venues in Utrecht. Het Huis has sponsored a number of excellent talks and performances over the years, so it’s a real pleasure to participate especially as part of the Christmas-time celebration. I’ll be speaking about my current research project on digital historiography and performance.
But, it will also be bittersweet as my final presentation during my time in Utrecht. On Wednesday, I’ll meet with the Performance and Media seminar for the last time and by the end of the month, I’ll be headed back to the US. My time in Europe has been both stimulating and restorative and I’m very grateful to the excellent staff at the Fulbright Center in Amsterdam for facilitating my fellowship and to my wonderful colleagues at Utrecht University, who have been so generous and welcoming. I’ve also been lucky to have been able to visit with artists, colleagues, and friends at other institutions and, predictably, the time has gone by quickly.
Hopefully, I can deliver a good-bye talk that is worthy of the generosity I have received here.
Sarah Bay-Cheng 