PhD Oral Exam - Holly Timpener, Humanities (Arts and Science)

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

Epicenter Revolutions: Internal Transformation in Non-Binary and Transgender Performance Art investigates how internal transformations are sensed, experienced, and understood through durational performance art by transgender and non-binary artists. Grounded in my lived experience as a non-binary performance artist, I conceptually propose internal transformations as embodied experiences through which shifts in sensation, affect, perception, and awareness generate new understandings of identity and relationships with others.

Through Performance as Research (PAR), I developed Epicenter Revolutions, a series of eight durational performance events involving transgender and non-binary artists across different geographical and cultural contexts. Combining performance, interviews, written reflections, and communal workshops, this research examines how duration creates opportunity to attend to subtle internal changes and how encounters with others shape these experiences. Drawing on phenomenology, sensory studies, affect theory, performativity, liminality, and communitas, I investigate the relationships between embodied experience, temporality, identity, and community.

I argue that durational performance creates conditions for sensing internal transformations that may challenge normative understandings of gender and identity. These transformations emerge through embodied actions, shifting awareness, and relational encounters, with their implications sometimes unfolding long after a performance ends. The diverse experiences of the Epicenterists demonstrate how internal transformations are both individually sensed and relationally constituted. Moving from personal inquiry toward collective knowledge-making, this dissertation establishes durational performance as a site through which embodied knowledge is generated and shared within transgender and non-binary communities.

Across five chapters, Chapter One examines Epicenter Revolutions’ methodological foundations through PAR. Chapter Two situates internal transformations within phenomenology, sensory studies, affect theory, and liminality. Chapter Three explores how durational performance art enables sensing and interpreting these transformations. Chapter Four considers the relationship between internal transformations and transgender and non-binary identities. Chapter Five examines how community, relationality, and collective encounters shape them. Together, these chapters demonstrate how durational performance art offers transgender and non-binary artists opportunities to explore the complexities of their identities through embodied experience. This dissertation bears witness to diverse interpretations and experiences of internal transformation and charts how sensorially generated knowledge moves from the individual to the collective.