CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 9207, Manhattan
Prof. Christine Balance, the 2024 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, will present ongoing research and writing from her book project, Making Sense of Martial Law. In it, she studies what the diverse and contradictory poetics of Philippine martial law (1972-1986) perform and reveal about authoritarianism and cultural memory, as illustrated by both U.S.- and Philippines-based performances and productions. Making Sense of Martial Law also aims to illuminate important facets of the relationship between art and politics in dictatorships across the globe.
Balance will offer a short presentation addressing the book’s main arguments, themes, and structure, and her research & writing process, as a way to open up discussion with others working in the fields of performance studies, cultural studies, transnational American studies, Filipino/Filipino American studies, and Southeast Asian studies, as well as those interested in bridging critical & creative writing, scholarly & public humanities projects.
Christine Bacareza Balance is associate professor of performing & media arts and Asian American studies at Cornell University, where she is core faculty with the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP), and former director of Asian American studies. Prof. Balance is the 2024 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. She received her Ph.D. in performance studies at New York University.
Prof. Balance’s first book, Tropical Renditions: Making Musical Scenes in Filipino America (2016) received the Best First Book award from the Filipino Studies caucus of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS). Along with Prof. Lucy San Pablo Burns, she is co-editor of the artist-scholar anthology, California Dreaming: Movement and Migration in the Asian American Imaginary (2020). Prof. Balance’s articles on the production history of Apocalypse Now, former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, Asian American YouTube artists, OPM and Filipino phonography culture, Jessica Hagedorn's West Coast Gangster Choir, and spree killer Andrew Cunanan have been published in various academic journals.
Prof. Balance’s public humanities projects have included: "Critical Moves: Performance in Theory & Movement," an incubator for university-wide conversations on racism, inequity, and diversity, with art-making as an engine (co-organized with Karen Jaime, Cornell University); "Afterlives of Martial Law," a multi-site, multi-program public partnership with Visual Communications to archive and document the history of Philippine anti-martial law organizing in Los Angeles; and "The Songs We Carry," a traveling interactive pop-up exhibit of songs and stories of migration (commissioned by the Music Center, Los Angeles and in collaboration with Search to Involve Pilipino Americans/SIPA).
Prof. Balance is the recipient of fellowships from the Consortium for Faculty Diversity (CFD), UC President’s Postdoctoral program, Ford Foundation Postdoctoral program, and Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. She has served on the board of KulArts and continues to serve as a board member for CinemaSala, the Pop Music conference, and the AAPI Victory Alliance think tank.
