“Performance and Representation: Disability Ethnography on Stage” by Cassandra Hartblay

Date: Wednesday, November 21st, 2018

Location: The Ethnography Lab (Anthropology Building, AP 330)

Time: 6:00-8:00pm

This is the second event of the “Ethnographic Experiments” Speaker Series hosted by the Ethnography Lab. More information about the speaker series can be found here.

Dr. Cassandra Hartblay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto & in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health and Society at UTSC. This presentation will share the core tenets of performance ethnography as a research practice, through the example of I WAS NEVER ALONE, an ethnographic play about the life experiences of people with mobility and speech impairments in contemporary Russia. The play is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted by Cassandra Hartblay in Russia from 2012–2013 with funding from the National Science Foundation.

The play I WAS NEVER ALONE has been presented on stage at UNC-Chapel Hill, UC San Diego, and Yale University, and the script has been workshopped with research participants in Northwestern Russia. Dr. Hartblay was the recipient of the 2013 Irving Zola Award for Disability Studies, a past curator of the Performance Ethnography Lab of the Studio for Ethnographic Design at UC San Diego, and a postdoctoral associate at Yale University in 2017-2018. She received her PhD from UNC Chapel Hill in 2015.

More information about I WAS NEVER ALONE can be found here:

The focus on experimentation in this speaker series is designed open space for a reflection on ethnography as an ongoing and collaborative site and process that is enriched through multi-sensory and multi-modal engagement, both within and beyond the discipline of anthropology.

The events in this series are FREE and OPEN to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Contact ethnography.lab@utoronto.ca for more information.