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Chris Grobe

@cgrobe.bsky.social
504 followers 310 following 830 posts

Theorist/historian of performance. ART OF CONFESSION (bit.ly/2BALZDt). Now writing on tech and the arts, politics and performance.

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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I think students should read full oeuvres.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This one cites THE BOSTONIANS in interesting ways. They would teach very nicely as a pair. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690565...
penguinrandomhouse.com
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham: 9780593448250 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man’s life in this “coming of age story that captures the soul of America” (The Washington...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
dRRRoppinnnnng fr’m th’veeeeeils of th’mooooorning youtu.be/QLlcvQg9i6c?...
youtu.be
W.B. Yeats reads The Lake Isle of Innisfree
YouTube video by awetblackbough
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Reposted by Chris Grobe
Doug Eacho @dougeacho.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
kusama is a difficult figure to place in performance history, but terribly important to it. like ono and kawara she introduced the ideas of the japanese avant-garde(s) to those of nyc; though not of gutai she at times shared that group's interest in doing painting and performance at once. (1/10)
b&w photo of Kusama Yayoi's "Kusama's Self-Obliteration," 1967. two nude men unfurl a banner on the brooklyn bridge walkway with the title of the piece; two nude women touch heads under the banner; kusama, clothed in leggings and a smock, paints splotchy dots on the performers' bodies.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Well, this is the best bit of criticism I've read in a while: www.curbed.com/article/hype...
curbed.com
The Flexy-Theater Experiment Is Mostly a Dud
Reconfigurable arts spaces like the Perelman PAC and the Shed rarely do more with more.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
I'm working on a handout for an introductory class. What other quotations need to be on here?
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
The fact that THE PITT got nearly 50% of *all* nominations in its category for supporting/guest//actor/actress (12 of 26!!) tells you as much about that show's narrative structure as about its quality. It is the quintessential ensemble show.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Her husband’s writings also come to mind…
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
A great piece of writing on David Hockney: www.guernicamag.com/a-clear-pres...
guernicamag.com
A Clear Presence
<p>When I heard that Rodney King had died, two details in particular stuck out to me. One was that he died in a swimming pool. The other was that, earlier that day, somebody had heard him scream.</p>
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Damn, this archive goes hard.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Fwiw, Graeber's book is central to this season-ending episode of a podcast about AI and the "minimal viable company." The podcast itself is ... a mixed bag. www.iheart.com/podcast/1119...
iheart.com
Episode 8: Launch - Shell Game | iHeart
<p>HurumoAI finally sets sail in the Season 2 finale, and we find out how the world responds to a startup led by AI agents. The company explores new financing avenues and charts the next course for th...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
That's an awful lot of drama!
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Too bad Amelia Worsley isn't on here... www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
cornellpress.cornell.edu
Singing by Herself by Amelia Worsley | Hardcover | Cornell University Press
Singing by Herself reinterprets the rise of literary loneliness by foregrounding the female and feminized figures who have been overlooked in previous histories of solitude. Many of the earliest recor...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Gosh, it sure would be nice to have a section about books and ideas, staffed with people who actually know things about this stuff...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
I want you to guess whether this article draws a single substantive connection to "19th-century philosophy."
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
“I promise” is always my favorite example to teach. People get the contingency and fragility of a promise, whereas they’re prone to exaggerating the absolute strength of other performatives (wedding vows, declarations of war, etc.)
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Reposted by Chris Grobe
Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present @asapartsnow.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Happy February! Now’s a great time to submit your proposals for ASAP/17! www.artsofthepresent.org/conference/3...
artsofthepresent.org
ASAP/17: Get It Together!
Madison, WI | October 15-17, 2026
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Trump's NEH: "Bring back merit! And by 'merit' we mean, of course, our handpicked allies receiving noncompetitive awards."
"Many of the large grants, including those to the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education, the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina, were noncompetitive, meaning the recipients were selected to apply, according to two people familiar with the applications."
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Look, I will die on this hill: Podcasts are audio files distributed for free via RSS. Videos are not podcasts. Streaming audio on subscription-based platforms is not a podcast.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
I’m sure the press’s marketing team will have the same idea. 🤠
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Today's the day I finally start writing a part of my book I've been working myself up to for months. It's about non-academic (esp. elite liberal) theories of political performance, and it's called... "Ezra Klein, Performance Theorist."
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
I did not have “Free Experimental Theater for All” on my political wishlist, but now … I might be a single-issue voter? (The tickets being handed out here are for the Under the Radar festival) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/t...
nytimes.com
Handing Out Free Tickets, Mamdani Says Theater Should Not Be ‘a Luxury’
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I promise this is not a scholarly version of that “hatred of AI is low-key racist” take
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I just published a thing I’m proud of: An article called “Botface” about (1) how humans behave when impersonating robots; (2) how it derives from blackface; and (3) how it contributes to the weird racialization of robots and AI. Please read, please share! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
journals.uchicago.edu
Botface | Critical Inquiry: Vol 52, No 2
Abstract Evidently, people love watching others pretend to be robots. This article uncovers hidden links between this practice and blackface performance, then theorizes the two as similarly metatheatr...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
I love my reading nook so much.
A cozy chair and ottoman sit in a light-filled window bay, where various cacti and succulents soak up the sun.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
Five years ago today, I was slated to teach theories of play in a course called "The Performance of Politics." Instead, we sat and watched rioters storm the Capitol. A year later, I published "The Deep, Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots." I still stand by its conclusions. doi.org/10.1080/1352...
The opening paragraph of "The Deep Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots"Two concluding paragraphs from "The Deep Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots"
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Excuse me while I convene a performance studies conference entirely about this quote: "For Kirk and for much of society today, words are not expressions with referents, but rather, performative speech acts with specific functions — in his case, owning the libs." www.theverge.com/policy/84960...
theverge.com
The year politics became brainrot
You don’t bring a persuasive argument to a gunfight.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
This is perfectly accurate as a representation of SLACs a half-century-plus ago, including the movement of star pupils into squishy faculty positions — but not, as you say, a representation of grad education anywhere ever. But it DOES feature a top-notch cat performance, so … even Stephen?
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
This is exactly the question being prepped for debate by the characters in Emmanuelle Mattana's fascinating play TROPHY BOYS. ... you know, just in case anyone boycotting CBS wants to read some drama: playlabtheatre.com.au/web/viewer.h...
playlabtheatre.com.au
PDF.js viewer
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Reposted by Chris Grobe
Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present @asapartsnow.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
We are so excited to reveal the ASAP/17 logo for our upcoming conference in Madison, WI, on Oct. 15-17! Stay tuned for the CFP!
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Although an interesting exception (?) might be a production like ERS’s Gatz, which I think was toured and revived with identical sets and costumes for many, many years. Broadway touring companies likely do the same, but without the stuff ever having gone into storage.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Holiday shows (e.g., annual productions of A Christmas Carol) typically reuse sets and costumes — or, at least, costume *designs* when the cast changes from year to year. Other than that, I’m guessing it doesn’t happen
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Credit where credit is due: this a thoughtful, non-doom-hype-y article on higher ed and AI. In the year of our lord 2025! Bonus points for not mentioning a single Ivy. Colleges mentioned include: Wyoming, UCSD, Western Ontario, Vanderbilt, and Illinois State. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
washingtonpost.com
Professors are turning to this old-school method to stop AI use on exams
A small but growing number of educators are experimenting with oral exams to circumvent the temptations presented by powerful AI platforms.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
As Raymond Williams observed, “We come to tragedy by many roads.”
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Seconding this as a Mariners convert from Cubs fandom -- it was obviously the curse-breaking that cursed the nation, not the Cubs winning. Only the Cubs losing in the WS -- preferably to the Mariners -- could undo it. Curse lifted/restored!
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
There’s a good poem about this: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
poetryfoundation.org
The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On
Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse of boats: boats of prisoners, boats cracking under sky-iron, boats making corpses bloom like algae on the shore. There was the apocalypse of the taxi dr...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
(Nods sagely) The Three vs. The Many
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
In a nutshell the modern actor is someone trying to ditch bad forms of “mechanicity” (basically, that of the clockwork automaton) in favor not of “organic” “human” expression but in pursuit of a different, refined “mechanicity” (that of cybernetic, “responsive” machines). Welcome to my TED talk…
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
There’s nothing strange or “hypothetical” about this notion in a theater context. The idea that self-consciousness is the enemy and that actors need to travel some via negativa to strip it away — this is the post-Romantic consensus in actor training and acting theory.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
I don’t call it triage, but I absolutely sequence edits in stages based on how important/transformative they are. Working in several “passes” allows me to focus on the revisions I’m doing, and not get bogged down in changing everything simultaneously. I picked this up from a fiction writer.
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Submitted revisions of articles on back-to-back to days. As sports commentators would say, "He's on pace for 365 publications by July 15 of next year!"
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
First-year creative writer discovers enjambment while interning at local flour company
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Reposted by Chris Grobe
Patrick McKelvey @pmckelveyphd.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
“Disability Works” turns 1 today! I’d like to celebrate by making sure it finds its way into the hands of even more readers. You can help by: 1) Requesting your library purchase a copy (link in bio) 2) Let me know if you assign it (I can zoom in!) #disability #academicsky #historysky #booksky
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Article submitted: my first essay on podcasts!
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Sounds like your next season……..
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
From an essay just published
scholarlypublishingcollective.org
Too Much, Too Late: On Academic Responses to Generative AI
Future readers will struggle to fathom how fast it happened. Overnight, academic leaders committed hundreds of buildings, thousands of faculty lines, and billions of research dollars to the reinvigora...
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
On the dangers of making your work “relevant” to AI: “Like LLMs themselves, which deskill human writing and pollute the corpus of text on which LLMs continue to be trained, AI-relevant research also risks eroding its own foundations in now unfundable and ‘irrelevant’ research.”
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Chris Grobe @cgrobe.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
“Project Gatsby” — incredible.
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