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Home > Events > The Empty Space > FacultyDr. Frederick C. Corey
[TOP] Dr. Olga Idriss Davis
Davis’ research interests include ritual and identity in the African Diaspora, womanist theory, and the performance of African American women’s rhetorical and performative traditions. Her originally-authored dramatic performance entitled, “Standing on the Hyphen: Weaving Threads of African-American Women’s Identity, interrogates the racialized and gendered spaces of hyphenated identity through the metaphor of the quilt. A co-edited book with Marsha Houston entitled, Centering Ourselves: African American Feminist and Womanist Studies of Discourse, examines the lived experience of Black women’s communication and is now available by Hampton Press. [TOP] Dr. Amira De la Garza
Amira De la Garza uses performance, embodied methods and creative writing in (auto) ethnographic research and studies of culture, spirituality, and narrative identity.
[TOP] Jennifer Linde
In my position as artistic director, I serve as advisor, script consultant, and director of a variety of laboratory performance projects presented by undergraduate and graduate students at The Empty Space. I passionately believe that performance studies offers students a vehicle to demonstrate an embodied understanding of their reactions, realities, and truths, as well as a method to critically evaluate communicative issues of personal and social significance. The laboratory work at the Empty Space is vibrant and complex and I am strongly committed to the students who choose to engage in it. [TOP] Dr. Sarah Tracy (affiliated Faculty)
Sarah Tracy is an active participant in performance studies at ASU. Her interests include alternative ethnographic representations and transforming scholarship to the stage. She has worked on two trigger script performances at The Empty Space; Navigating the Cruise and Bullied. These performances were adaptations of Tracy's research on cruise ship sexual harassment and workplace bullying.
[TOP] Dr. Kristin B. Valentine (Emeritus)
Professor of Communication and Women’s Studies Ph.D. Univ. of Utah M.A. Univ. of Washington B.S. Univ. of Wisconsin Research Interests ethnography of cultural performances, oral traditions and folklore service-learning incarcerated women Ethnographic Fieldwork New Zealand: Scandinavian Cultural Performances. Years 2001, 1997 Spanish Galicia: Galician Cultural Performances. Years 1992, 1989-90, 1982-83 Selected Publications Valentine, Eugene and Kristin B. Valentine. “Healing at the Coast of Death in Spanish Galicia; The Romeria to Our Lady’s Boat.” Pilgrimages and Healing. Yearbook of Cross-Cultural Medicine and Psychotherapy. 10. Jill Dubisch and Michael Winkelman, eds. 2002 Valentine, Kristin B. and Eugene Valentine. “Veneration of the Virgin of Crystal in Ritual and Narrative.” Special Issue on Ethnography and Performance. Iowa Journal of Communication 33:01 (2002). Valentine, Kristin B. and Gordon Matsumoto. “Cultural Performance Analysis Spheres: An Integrated Ethnographic Methodology.” Field Methods, 13:1 (2001): 68-87. Valentine, Kristin B. "Performance of Oral Traditions: A Service Learning Approach." Voices of Strong Democracy: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning. Eds. David Droge and Bren Ortega Murphy. Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education, 1999. 97-109. Valentine, Kristin B. "If the Guards Only Knew: Communication Education for Women in Prison." Women's Studies in Communication. 21 (1998): 238-243. Recent Performances
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My interest in performance is connected to my interest in the human body as a site of cultural value. I trace this interest throughout my academic career, from my dissertation, a study of Martha Graham’s use of classical tragedy in modern dance, to my most recent interests, psychoanalytic interpretations of gender and sexuality. Much of my work focuses on the gay male body, and I have essays and chapters on the gay male body published in Text and Performance Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, Journal of Homosexuality, Communication of Prejudice, and Communication and the Disenfranchised. I have worked as well with narrative, and I am especially interested in narratives that initiate social change. Topics I have explored at length include HIV education, young men in prison, and the corporeal desert. 
Olga Idriss Davis is Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Women’s Studies in The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and is an alumna of The Juilliard School in drama. Professor Davis made her television debut in a recurring role as Student Nurse on the ABC daytime drama, “General Hospital.” Her stage debut occurred with the late Rock Hudson, Claire Trevor, and Leif Erickson in the bi-centennial production of “John Brown’s Body” directed by John Houseman. As a Rockefeller fellow, she conducted research on the performative and liberatory nature of Black female slave narratives. Her current scholarship extends the role of narrative in the lives of African American survivors of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Race Riot of 1921. Inspired by a graduate course created by Davis that explores survival discourse, the show entitled Performing Survival: Narratives of Cultural Memory, Struggle, and Resistance was directed by Davis and performed by graduate students of the course. The show and course offered a sobering look at the inner experiences of survivors of the Jewish holocaust, Native American boarding schools, Tulsa Race Riot, and Japanese American internment camps.
I am a lecturer in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication and the Artistic Director of The Empty Space. I have designed and taught performance studies courses relating to communication and creativity, oral interpretation of literature, performance of sexuality, performance of ethnography, performance of literature by women, and performance theory.
