Objects in Protest: Bread and Puppet Theater's (Non)Human Solidarities

Bread and Puppet Theater's use of performing objects offers an aperture to contemplate complex assemblages that blur lines between the human and the nonhuman. Drawing upon cultural studies, feminist materialism, circus studies, and puppetry studies, I consider both the bread and the puppets as they intersect with various assemblages and fields of interpretation. These configurations demonstrate how the objects embody (non)human, material, and conceptual aspects. Because of this ability to exist within the meshes of binaries, performing objects are well suited to challenge and expose other binaries and hierarchies through three categories of analysis — movement, difference, and intra-action — based on Karan Barad's work on matter. In addition to the theoretical framework, I conducted ethnographic interviews and rely on my own experience as an apprentice at Bread and Puppet in 2004, considering myself as co-constitutive actant within the scope of analysis. I examine the way the theater uses sourdough bread and puppets as performing objects to create meaning, express ideology, apply tension within constructs of power, and demonstrate a model for co-dependent living between humans and objects

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought

Department dc:contributor.department

Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Plummer, Sarah E.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Ni, Zhange

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Taylor, Jessica
• Ansell, Aaron
• Daggett, Cara
• Mollin, Marian B.

• Bread and Puppet Theater
• objects
• materialism
• protest
• rod puppets
• sourdough
• circus
• Cheap Art
• intra-action
• assemblage
• performing object
• solidarity

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:38227

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115789