Biography
Michael Stablein Jr. is a joint-PhD candidate in Theater and Performance Studies and English Language and Literature and a Residential Fellow at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
His dissertation project, “Boys Will Be Men and Other Consequences," examines the violent dramaturgies of contemporary masculinity through the lens of the post-45 coming-of-age genre. From novel to incel manifesto, from playscript to capitol insurrection, the dissertation bridges genre theory and performance studies to examine the consequential movements from narrative to performance and from genre to gender. Studying the more extreme and violent failures to meet the expectations of masculinity, the project outlines a paradigmatic genre that has proved a relentless cudgel of normative teleology.
He was one of ATHE’s 2022 Emerging Scholars in Performance Studies; a 2022 Fellow in UChicago’s Arts, Science, and Culture Initiative; and his writing can be found in ASAP/J and forthcoming with GLQ and TDR. In addition to his scholarship, he maintains a performance practice which deploys choreographies of masculinity to address questions of repetition, normativity, and identity-formation. He has exhibited and performed in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, and Berlin. He holds a Bachelor's from Florida State University and a Master's from Columbia University of New York.
Publications
— “An Inconsummate Man: The Violent Dramaturgy of Elliot Rodger.” TDR/The Drama Review (forthcoming).
— “More (Than) Masculinity: K. Allison Hammer’s Masculinity in Transition.” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies (forthcoming).
— “Five on MIKE.” With Fabien Maltais-Bayda, Clara Nizard, Tina Post, and Asya Sagnak. ASAP/J.
Teaching
Spring 2024, Instructor of Record, Text and Performance, Arts Core Curriculum
Winter 2023, Course Assistant, Shrews! Unladylike Conduct on Stage in Early Modern England (Ellen MacKay)
Autumn 2022, Course Assistant, Critical Videogame Studies (Patrick Jagoda)
Autumn 2021, Course Assistant, Queering the American Family Drama (Leslie Danzig)
