Jeff Gagnon
Project
No Cloud Without Sky – Spectrum Sovereignties
Biography
Jeff obtained his PhD at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. His dissertation: Tactical Dramaturgies: Urban Space, Ambient Informatics, and the Performance of Protest, winner of the Alumni Dissertation Award from the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, is analysis of protest tactics employed by digitally-enabled resistance groups in North America. Jeff’s work is enthusiastically multidisciplinary, intersecting with performance studies, digital humanities, and critical geography in order to engage with technology within the context of place-based resistance, decolonial thinking, and economic justice. Jeff’s current research work: No Cloud Without Sky is an investigation into mobilizations for spectrum sovereignty and a reconsideration of the relationship between cyberspace, material territory, and settler-colonialism.
Prior to pursuing graduate studies, Jeff taught high school in Northern Ontario and has since worked as Research and Digital Publishing fellow at The Theatre Times, Online Editor at Theatre Research in Canada (TRiC), and as Education Specialist (French Language Program) at MediaSmarts.ca
Education
B.A. (U Waterloo), M.A. (U Alberta), Ph.D (U Toronto)
Teaching Interests
Performance and political resistance; interventions into the digital; responses to settler-colonialism; Labour and performance; Brecht
Research Interests
Protest; the production of space; settler-colonialism; the materiality of Cyberspace; cryptocurrencies and land
Recent Presentations
No Cloud Without Sky: Spectrum Sovereignty and Ethereal Refusal. Conference Paper. Association of Internet Researchers. October 2021.
Re-Occupying Cyberspace: The Treaty of Waitangi as a Case for a Decolonized Internet. Paper. FOOT 2021: Bordered States. University of Toronto.
Virtual Fragilities and Cyberspace Materiality. Paper. FOOT 2020: Bodies in Flux. University of Toronto.
Autogestic Performance. Paper. PSI 2019, University of Calgary. Performance Studies International.
Acts of Reoccupation. Paper. CATR 2019, University of British Columbia. Canadian Association for Theatre Research.
Mobilized Vulnerability and Mimetic Fragility: Protest and Performative Counter Resistance. Paper. FOOT 2018: Supporting Bodies/Changing Minds. University of Toronto.