Dr. Debra Vidali, PhD
Director, Anthropology Theater Lab
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Affiliated Faculty, Theater Studies
Emory University, Atlanta, GA. USA
Dr. Debra Vidali is a sociocultural anthropologist, experimental ethnographer, theater-maker, linguist, and scholar-activist. Her research and teaching focus on embodied and multisensorial forms of knowledge, and she experiments in collaborative theater making and multi-modal inquiry. Recent publications examine the crafts of ethnographic theater scripting and staging, the alchemy of theater ensemble building, political and epistemological potentials of collaborative ethnographic theater, and the semiotics of multisensorial knowledge production.
Dr. Vidali conducts workshops and laboratories in collaborative ethnographic theater-making. She guides participants in an interactive theater-creation lab process, using techniques of embodied theater activation, nonlinear expression, and collaborative knowledge production.
Jo Abillama (she/her, they/them) is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology. They are interested in exploring how narratives defining mental health have spread from the West to the Global South and how neuronormativity is imposed culturally and socially, in both psychiatric settings and regular daily interactions. How has neuronormativity evolved and led to further stigmatization, pathologization, and medicalization of neurodivergent minds?
Jo Abillama is also interested in arts-based research methodologies, specifically performance ethnography, as they see in them the potential to both decolonize knowledge production and encourage engagement with a non-academic public. Jo Abillama holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (Lebanese American University, 2022), an MA in Theater (Kansas State University, 2015), and a BA in Psychology (American University of Beirut, 2013).
Anjali Borschel (Anthropology and Theater Studies, Emory College Class of 2025) is currently working on an honors thesis within the Department of Theater Studies. Her project focuses on an ethnographic study of feelings of belonging and loneliness in young adults. This research will be presented in Spring 2025 as a piece of verbatim theater, with the script being created almost entirely from verbatim dialogue from interviews.
Makalee Cooper (Theatre Studies and Anthropology, Emory College Class of 2025) studies the intersections between race, body size, gender, and performance. They are particularly interested in how anti-fatness began in the United States as an element of race and nation building, and how anti-fatness today is still linked to anti-Blackness and fascism.
Makalee Cooper’s theatre honors thesis, currently entitled The Show Must Go On… But Does Discrimination Have to Follow? Exploring Bias Against Fat, Black, and Queer Performers in the Contemporary American Theatre details how the representation of fat characters in the theatre betrays both the implicit bias against fat performers and the racism that anti-fatness originated from.
Anna Little (Anthropology and English & Creative Writing, Emory College Class of 2025) is using her background as a playwright to inform her honors thesis within the Department of Anthropology. Her thesis will hinge on interviews with people living with dementia and their loved ones and caregivers, exploring how memory loss affects personal identity and relationships. Verbatim dialogue from interviews will be converted into a script which will be presented as a staged reading at the project’s conclusion.
