A social scientist with a PhD in cultural studies, focusing on
gender, queer and performance studies, sociological theory and
visual sociology. Currently I am working on my postdoctoral
project Queering of gender, desire and local myths in the New
Burlesque. The comparison of the burlesque scenes in New
Orleans, Berlin and Warsaw funded by the German Research
Foundation (DFG project page) at the University of Potsdam, the
Institute for Arts and Media (IKM).
Associate Member on Research Center "Queery/ing
Popular Culture" University Siegen.
The particular question in my postdoctoral project concerns the
aspect of burlesquing the narratives we are surrounded by in
the burlesque performances. I want to investigate how the
burlesque uses the narratives of gender roles, sexuality, and
local or national myths with the burlesque scene in New
Orleans, Berlin, and Warsaw as example. According to Roland
Barthes, there is no escape from myths, unless we make our own.
The phenomenon of new burlesque can be seen as a new myth or as
another iteration of the common imaginings of gender roles,
sexuality, and local legends. The performative interplay
between these fantasies emphasizes the matrix of meaning that
we live in. With my project I will show how the cultural memory
is produced in the burlesque and how burlesque can change the
understanding of common gender roles and local „authenticity“
and myths through burlesquing/queering them, and thereby
revealing the constructive condition of the cultural memory.