Meet The Candidates: Thao P. Nguyen

We are excited to announce the final event of our Tenture Track search with Thao P. Nguyen research presentation.

The event with Thao P. Nguyen will be Friday, March 4th from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., entitled "Protest, Performance, and Race: Emma Sulkowicz' Mattress Performance (Carry that Weight)" The passcode for this event is 458554

Talk Description:

Rape is often cast as a "women's" issue. Sexual assault is indeed a form of gendered violence. For instance, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators are cis men. Mainstream discourses of sexual violence, however, often gloss over race and class as well as ignore issues pertinent to trans and queer folks. In this talk, Nguyen examines Emma Sulkowicz' Mattress Performance (Carry that Weight), a durational performance in which the artist carried a dorm mattress with them everywhere on Columbia University's campus throughout their senior year (2014-2015). Nguyen interrogates the raced and sexed body of the artist to offer a unique interpretation of the work under the lenses of critical race theory and queer theory. Nguyen argues that the socio-political phenomenon of rape is structured by and maintains ideologies of racism and cis/hetero-sexism. Thus, shifting the perception of rape as a single-axis issue to an intersectional one will offer new and more effective ways of studying, understanding and preventing sexual violence.

                We hope you are able to attend, and appreciate you participation with all three candidates and look forward to sharing the results as soon as we can