Rob Bailis became the Artistic and Executive Director of BroadStage in Santa Monica in 2019. Before then, he worked as a performing classical musician for ten years prior to becoming the Interim Artistic Director and Associate Director of Cal Performance at the University of California, Berkeley, where he headed the planning team in curating all of Cal Performances productions and presentations. There he curated dance and theater presentations...
Professor of Film & Media and East Asian Languages & Cultures at UC Berkeley
Weihong Bao is Pamela P. Fong and Family Distinguished Chair in China Studies and an Associate Professor of Film and Media & East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley. She has published widely on comparative media history and theory, media and environment, early cinema, war and modernity, affect theory, propaganda theory and practice, and Chinese language cinema of all periods and regions. Her book Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915-1945 (University of Minnesota Press, 2015) received an honorable mention for the Modernist...
Teaching Professor at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
Sara Beckman has spent her years as a boundary spanner at UC Berkeley, where she has held faculty appointments in both the Haas School of Business and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She served as Chief Learning Officer for the newly formed Jacobs Institute of Design Innovation and facilitated the creation of a multi-disciplinary Certificate in Design Innovation. She teaches courses such as Collaborative Innovation which integrates Art Practice, Theater and Dance Performance Studies and Business perspectives on both collaboration and innovation.
Natalia Brizuela is a Professor of Spanish & Portuguese and Film & Media at UC Berkeley. Her work focuses on photography, film and contemporary art, critical theory and aesthetics of both Spanish America and Brazil. She is the author of two books on photography. The first, Fotografia e Império. Paisagens para um Brasil Moderno (Cia das Letras, 2012) is a study of 19th Century photography in Brasil in its relationship to modern state formation, nationalism, modernization and race. The second, Depois da fotografia. Uma literatura fora de si (Rocco, 2014) is a study...
Professor of Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, and Spanish
Anthony J. Cascardi is Professor of Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, and Spanish, and served for ten years as Dean of Arts and Humanities. He is also former Director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities and of the Arts Research Center. Cascardi’s research interests include the relations between literature and philosophy; aesthetic theory; the novel; and early modern Europe. His books include The Subject of Modernity; Consequences of Enlightenment; Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics; and The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and Philosophy. His...
Deena Chalabi is a strategist, curator and writer whose work explores how individual expression and critical thought can impact and expand public imagination. She was most recently Senior Director of Growth and Partnerships at The OpEd Project, a global thought leadership initiative for elevating underrepresented voices working towards a more intelligent and inclusive world.
Deena is also Brand Advisor at Armory Square Ventures and teaches global contemporary art in the Curatorial Practice graduate program at the California College of the Arts.
Assistant Professor of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College
Irene Chien writes about the politics of race and gender in digital media, with a focus on videogames. She is writing a book manuscript based on her dissertation titled Programmed Moves: Race and Embodiment in Fighting and Dancing Videogames. Programmed Moves examines the intertwined history and transnational circulation of two major videogame genres, martial arts fighting games and rhythm dancing games. Dr. Chien argues that fighting and dancing games point to a key dynamic in videogame play: the programming of the body into the algorithmic...
Vice President, Office of the Vice President for the Arts at Stanford University
Deborah Cullinan is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the pivotal role artists and arts organizations can play in shaping our social and political landscape, and has spent years mobilizing communities through arts and culture. She joined Stanford University in early 2022 as the first full-time vice president for the arts. Previously, she was CEO of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), where she launched several bold new programs, engagement strategies, and civic coalitions. Prior to joining YBCA in 2013, she was the executive director of San Francisco’s...
Helen Pardee Professor of History of Art at UC Berkeley
Whitney Davis is George C. and Helen N. Pardee Professor of History and Theory of Ancient and Modern Art. He has taught at UC Berkeley since 2001. He is also Honorary Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of York, UK, where he leads the annual York Summer Theory Institute in Art History (YSTI). Previously he taught at Northwestern University, where he was John Evans Professor of Art History, Director of the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, and a member of the Program in African Studies. Focusing on ancient African, ancient Egyptian and Near...
Tarek Elhaik's work is based on participant observation in several domains of practice related to contemporary art and experimental media worlds, with a special interest in the different modes of curatorial practice that animate those worlds. The aim of his fieldwork-based inquiries is both to problematize the mediatory role and increasing influence of curatorial practice in contemporary life and to evaluate the ethical, political, and aesthetic implications of curation for imagining other ways of living and being human. Elhaik's inquiry consists in "...