TAPS/English
Michael Stablein Jr. is a joint-PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies and English. He is a Fellow both at UChicago's Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and in the Arts, Science, and Culture Initiative. His dissertation project, “Late Stage Masculinity: Boys Will Be Men and Other Consequences," interprets the violent dramaturgies of contemporary masculinity through the lens of the post-45 coming-of-age genre. Ranging in form and subject—from novel to playscript, from incel manifesto to political insurrection—he examines the residual genres and scripts of an all-too-violent contemporary masculinity. He is an ATHE 2022 Emerging Scholar in Performance Studies and has published with ASAP/J.
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.