Dr. Jennifer Goodlander

Dr. Jennifer Goodlander

Adjunct, Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance

Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Literature

Affiliate, Gender Studies

Affiliate, Folklore and Ethnomusicology

Affiliate, Cultural Studies

Affiliate, Southeast Asian and ASEAN Studies (past Director, 2017-2019)

Affiliate, Anthropology

Education

  • Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Arts, Ohio University, Athens, OH, 2010
  • M.F.A., Asian Performance-Directing, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, 2004
  • B.A., Theatre and Women's Studies, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI, 1997

    About Jennifer Goodlander

    Professor Goodlander’s main area of research and teaching centers puppetry and objects to explore the tensions between tradition and modernity as expressed in transnational performance, literature, and other arts—primarily in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. She is especially interested in the productive boundary between text, embodiment, material culture, and visual representation as investigated through an ethnographic lens.

    She has received many grants and fellowships for her performance work and research on Asian performance, including a Fulbright Fellowship to Indonesia and funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As a theatre director and puppet artist she has worked nationally and internationally. Professor Goodlander is the current president for the Association of Asian Performance.

    Her first two books -- Women in the Shadows: Gender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali (2016) and Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identity in Southeast Asia (2018) focus on puppetry – one of the oldest and most dynamic performances in Southeast Asia.

    Currently, Dr. Goodlander is working on several projects related to intercultural performance theory in order to trouble the Western hegemonic dynamic generally associated with intercultural performance by drawing on recent theories of global Asia(s).

    Recent Courses:

    Undergraduate:

    • CMLT 257: ASIAN LITERATURE AND OTHER ARTS (INDONESIA)
    • CMLT 262: CROSS-CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS (MONSTERS)
    • CMLT 311: DRAMA
    • CMLT 343: LITERATURE AND POLITICS – POLITICAL THEATRE

     

    Graduate:

    • CMLT 511: DRAMA
    • CMLT 602: PUPPETS, OBJECTS, AND THINGS
    • THTR 583: MODERN DRAMA AND ASIA
    • THTR 583: GLOBAL DRAMATIC AND CRITICAL THEORY
    • THTR 775: MUSEUMS AND PERFORMANCE

     

    Recent Publications and Other Activities:

    • Co-Investigator. “Platform - An Arts and Humanities Research Laboratory: Global Popular Music.” Funding provided the Mellon Foundation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 2018-current.
    • Invited Lecture (online). “Woman behind the Shadows: My Journey with Puppets and Tradition in Bali and Beyond.” For the Summer 2020 Online Puppet Forum hosted by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, July 10, 2020. Video is available here.
    • Book Chapter. “Beyond HIT: Towards Regional Interculteralism through Puppetry in Southeast Asia” In Methuen Drama Handbook of Interculturalism and Performance. New York: Routledge, 2020.
    • Book Chapter. “Erasure, Intervention, and Reconstruction: Imagining Women Puppeteers in Burma.” In Women and Puppetry: Critical and Historical Investigations. Edited by Claudia Orenstein, Alissa Mello, and Cariad Astles. New York: Routledge, 2019: 66-82.
    • Social Media, Puppets, and Global Identities in Southeast Asia for the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, April 2018.
    • Journal Article. “Intercultural Theatre and Community in Southeast Asia: The ASEAN Puppet Exchange in Jakarta.” Asian Theatre Journal1(2018): 27-52.