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John Cowart Dawsey

CV Lattes ResearcherID ORCID Google Scholar Citations


Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH)  (Institutional affiliation from the last research proposal)
Birthplace: Brazil

John C. Dawsey, Full Professor of Anthropology and Performance Studies at the University of Sao Paulo (2007). Bachelor of Arts in History from Florida Southern College (1973), Master's in Theology (1977) and Ph.D. in Anthropology (1989) from Emory University. In 1999, defended a Livre-Docencia thesis, What makes boia fria sugarcane cutters laugh? Walter Benjamin and Bertholt Brecht on truck wagons, and became Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Sao Paulo. Visiting Scholar at New York University (2019). Founding director of Napedra (Anthropology, Performance and Drama Research Center) since 2001; and Coordinating Faculty Liaison of the Afro-Brazilian Arts Center at USP (directed by Luiz Antonio Nascimento Cardoso, Mestre Penguin) from 2007 to 2024.. With Napedra colleagues, organized and coordinated Seismology of Performance: 20 Years Napedra (2021); the 1st International Meeting of Anthropology and Performance (2011); the 1st National Meeting of Anthropology and Performance (2010); Richard Schechner Dialogues and Workshops (2012); Napedra in Performance: Creations 1-12 (2014-2024); at the University of Sao Paulo. He coordinated a Thematic Project of Fapesp (2008-2013), on Anthropology and Performance, involving 35 researchers. He published various books, collections, and articles in scientific journals. Invited speaker at various universities, including University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, New York University, Université Paris 8, Universidad Nacional Autônoma de Mexico, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Emory University, Auburn University. Department Head of Anthropology (USP), 2003-2007. Between theater and anthropology, explores refigurations of anthropology made possible by the works of Walter Benjamin and leading thinkers of theater and performance (Artaud, Brecht, Schechner and others). Publications relate to multiple themes, such as performance and anthropology; anthropology of experience; Benjaminian anthropology; theater of boias frias; river dolls; the House of Joanna Dark; Our Lady of the Slash-Knife District; and Aparecida and the she-wolf. A set of concepts results from these studies: tension-thick description (descrição tensa); f(r)iction (with r between parentheses); margins of margins; seismology of performance; everyday metatheater; everyday astoundment; sound unconscious; Benjaminian mimetic circuit; subterranean regions of symbols; entrails of dreams; ghost theater; stories of oblivion; bodily index; corpoiesis; ethnof(r)iction; interethnic f(r)iction; tension-thick montage; and displacement of the living place of things. orcid.org/0000.0003.1427.7804 (Source: Lattes Curriculum)

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