Voguing Against the State: Chicago, USA and Santiago, Chile

Future faculty teaching fellow in Spanish, Daniel Runnels, compares two recent movements, Black Lives Matter in the United States in the summer of 2020 and the Chilean mass revolt of October 2019.

This talk considers two episodes occurring during recent revolts: Black Lives Matter in the United States in the summer of 2020, and the Chilean mass revolt of October 2019. Specifically, Runnels considers two video clips that depict activists performing the dance known as “voguing.” Runnels, reading these performances as exercises against state performance of legibility, draws on historic and contemporary links between Chile and the United States to argue that these performances offer a glimpse of a politics that refuses capture by any archē, a Greek term which, since Aristotle, has united two senses: inception and domination.

This event is part of the Department of World Languages and Cultures’ International Lecture Series and is hosted as part of the 2022 IUPUI International Festival.