Evan Winet
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Theatre Arts
412-624-6659
evanwinet@gmail.com
Evan Darwin Winet is a teacher, scholar, director and maskmaker. His research interests include modern and traditional Indonesian theatre, intercultural and postcolonial theatres, nationalism and glocality, phenomenology and performing objects, theatre and Islam and theatre history pedagogy. He has taught several versions of a full global theatre history and dramatic literature sequence and Introduction to Theatre as well as courses on performing objects, maskmaking, Asian theatre, intercultural and postcolonial theatre, theatre and Islam, directing and acting.
He received his M.A. in Theatre and Drama with Phillip Zarrilli's Asian/Experimental Theatre program at the University of Wisconsin in 1995, and his Ph.D. in Drama and Humanities working with Harry Elam and Alice Rayner at Stanford University in 2001. He has previously taught at Macalester College, Cornell University, University of Kansas and Australian National University.
His book, Indonesian Postcolonial Theatre: Spectral Genealogies and Absent Faces (forthcoming from Palgrave/Macmillan Press, 2008) is a critical history of that country's modern theatre and drama, tracing continuities from colonial pasts through perceived postcolonial ruptures. Other writings on Indonesia's modern theatre also appear in Staging Nationalism (McFarland, 2005) and Writing and Rewriting National Theatre Histories (Iowa, 2004). His English translations of several modern Indonesian plays into English will appear in the forthcoming Lontar Anthology of Indonesian Drama. He is also a contributing editor on Asian drama to the Norton Anthology of Drama and a major contributor to the Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre (Greenwood Press, 2007). He is currently guest-editing a special issue of the Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism on "Glocal Dramatic Theories" (forthcoming Spring 2009). Since 2005, he has coordinated the National Identities/National Cultures Research Group, which meets at the annual conferences of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). He will be serving on the program committee for the 2009 ASTR conference in Puerto Rico.
In 2005, he directed the world premiere of a new English translation of The Jester (al-muharrij), a satirical play on the failures of Arab nationalism by the late Syrian poet, Muhammed Maghut. This was one of a small number of works by native Arab (as distinct from Arab-American) playwrights to appear on American stages since 9/11.