Research

As a researcher…

My interests lie within the field of robotics, cyberculture, and technology in theatre and performance. This interest developed during my time studying playwriting at the University of Iowa, where I found myself often writing plays featuring futuristic landscapes and robotic characters. I was fascinated at the notion of human/robotic interactions both in spaces of domesticity, labor, and scientific inquiry.

My latest peer reviewed article “From R.U.R. to Westworld: Personal Revolt, Digital Technology, and the Making of a New Robot Ur-text” will be published in Comparative Drama this winter. This article explores the ways HBO’s Westworld (2016-2022) calls back to Karel Capek’s formative robot play R.U.R., specifically in its treatment of robotic self-consciousness as a narrative trope, inspiring subsequent rebellion against humans. The article argues that while R.U.R. establishes a particular genre-based Ur-text in which robots rebel against their human counterparts, Westworld continues the development of this narrative exploration of rebellion, becoming a new robot-Ur-text for the digital age.

My book project titled “Robot Dramaturgy” has garnered interest from several large scholarly publishers. The project explores the shifting trends in the representation, interpretation, and embodiment of robots in performance. Much of this research tracks the concept of the robot as a theatrical invention, from its emergence in Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. (1921) to the Robothespian (right), a contemporary robot created for human/robotic interaction. The project argues that while robots are frequently portrayed as a harbingers of destruction and deception within twentieth and twenty first century media, the robot instead becomes a powerful tool for the deconstruction and dismantling western technophobia in live theatrical performance. Live performance allows audiences to see robots for what they are truly capable of; their limitations, technical problems, and dependency on human intervention become clear within the theatre, ultimately reminding audiences that robotics can enrich our social, domestic, and work lives.