ASU Herberger College Theatre Professor Awarded Smithsonian Fellowship for Latino Studies

TEMPE, Ariz. - The world's largest museum and research organization, the Smithsonian Institution, has selected Ramon Rivera-Servera, assistant professor of Performance Studies, as a postdoctoral fellow in the Latino Studies Fellowship program, one of the most important research awards in the field of Latino studies.

The program selects U.S. Latino predoctoral students and postdoctoral or senior scholars to pursue research related to Latino history, art, and culture using Smithsonian resources. For more information, please see: http://www.si.edu/ofg/.

Rivera-Servera was awarded the fellowship to complete two books. His current project, Grassroots Globalizations, Queer Sexualities and the Performance of Latinidad, explores the role of live performance in the cultural and political negotiations of sexuality among Latina/os in the United States. The second book project, Exhibiting Performance: Museums and the Live Event, will look critically at the position of the performing arts within museum practice from a variety of perspectives.

In the ASU Herberger College Department of Theatre, Rivera-Servera directs the Performance in the Borderlands Project, a research and programming initiative that organizes and sponsors lectures, workshops, performances and public discussions with artists, critics and scholars from around the country who are leaders in cross-cultural arts. He is also assistant director of the doctoral concentration in Theatre and Performance of the Americas. Along with assistant professor Tamara Underiner, Rivera-Servera co-chairs the Theatre and Performance of the Americas Project. The project oversees ASU's elite membership with the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, an international consortium of academic and arts organizations, individual scholars, artists and activists dedicated to the study and practice of performance and politics in the American hemisphere.

His residence at the Smithsonian coincides with the opening of the exhibition Azucar! The Life and Music of Celia Cruz at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the first large-scale project on a Latina popular performer to be organized at the institution.

"This award reflects ASU and the Herberger College Department of Theatre's growing expertise and notoriety in the field of Theatre and Performance of the Americas," said Ramon Rivera-Servera. "ASU is poised to become a destination for scholars and practitioners interested in research and creative activity that deals with the political and cultural intricacies of our hemisphere."

The Performance in the Borderlands Project is part of the Department of Theatre in the Herberger College of Fine Arts at ASU. The Department of Theatre provides a comprehensive range of courses in performance and directing; design and production; playwriting and dramaturgy; theatre and performance studies; film studies; and theatre for youth. Its Theatre for Youth program is nationally ranked in the top three and its creative writing/playwriting program is ranked 15th among public institutions by U.S.News & World Report . To learn more about the Department of Theatre, visit http://theatre.asu.edu .

Media Contact:
Mica Matsoff
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