People

Debra Vidali, PhD

Co-founder and faculty director, Experimental Ethnography at Emory Working Group
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Affiliated Faculty, Theater Studies, Department of Theater and Dance

Debra Vidali is an anthropologist, theater-maker, artist, and scholar-activist. Her work centers on building bridges across disciplines and experimenting with the modalities, frontiers, and implications of knowledge production. Topics include: decolonization theory/practice, social justice, civic engagement, media, language, and Indigenous sovereignty. She works in a range of genres, including ethnographic theater, sonic installation, and hybrid multisensorial forms.

Will Boose, PhD student

Web Content Editor, Experimental Ethnography at Emory

Will is a first-year PhD student in Emory’s anthropology department. As a MA student in Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, he conducted research on the labor experiences of motorcycle taxi drivers in Iquitos, Perú–work that he will continue and expand for his dissertation. Will also works with colleagues from Iquitos as Digital Editor of the poetry and literature review SENTIDOS: Revista Amazónica.

John Gulledge, PhD candidate

Co-Editor, Interventions Blog, Experimental Ethnography at Emory

John Gulledge is a doctoral candidate in English studying early modern theater and culture, disability performance, affect/cognition, and the history of emotions, especially feelings associated with laughter and wonder. His dissertation project is tentatively titled “Prosthetic Laughter: Feeling Disabled Performance in Early Modern England,” which traces the performance and presentation of disability both on and off the stage between 1570 and 1777.

AJ Jones

Co-founder, Experimental Ethnography at Emory Working Group

AJ JONES, graduate student, enters Emory. Back from another summer studying Turner Syndrome, she strides with confidence. She opens her mouth to speak. Nothing. Baffled, she tries again. Nothing. After a beat, an idea.

Blackout. Lights up.

AJ Jones is a fourth year PhD candidate at Emory. She is interested in exploring performances of gender and disability in the United States through theatrical and performative approaches. She is currently collaborating with the North Carolina Turner Syndrome community to investigate and translate their experiences through role play, improvisation, and scene writing.

Sasha Tycko, PhD Student

Programming Coordinator and Web Content Editor, Experimental Ethnography at Emory
PhD Student, Cultural Anthropology

Sasha Tycko’s research interests center on the forms of knowledge produced by modern colonialism and their ongoing unsettlement within queer cultural spaces. As a deejay and sound artist, Sasha works with sound as both an analytic tool and a modality of knowledge production. www.sashatycko.net