ON LEAVE
Until September 2025

Olivia Michiko Gagnon

she/they
Assistant Professor, Theatre Studies
Research Area

About

OLIVIA MICHIKO GAGNON, BA Hons (U. Toronto), MA (NYU), PhD (NYU), specializes in performance studies, with research and teaching interests in minoritarian performance, critical race and ethnic studies, feminist and queer theory, critical Indigenous studies, and performative/experimental writing. She is currently finishing her first monograph––On Closeness: Archives, Performance, and Forms of Relation––which theorizes closeness as a multivalent minoritarian method that moves between the aesthetic and the social. Their writing has appeared in ASAP/JournalText & Performance Quarterly, Canadian Theatre ReviewemisféricaSyndicate, C Magazine, and Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, where they were Managing Editor from 2017 – 2019 and are co-editor (with James McMaster) of a special issue titled The Between: Couple Forms, Performing Together. She has also written for the Vancouver Art Gallery (with Monika Kin Gagnon), the Belkin Gallery, Gallery 44, and the New Museum, and was formerly Managing Editor of HemiPress at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in New York City. They received their PhD and MA from the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, were formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts University, and have taught at NYU, Tufts, and Harvard University. At UBC, she is Affiliated Faculty in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration (ACAM) Studies and Faculty Associate at The Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice (GRSJ).


Teaching


Publications

Select Publications:

 “Moving Through Crisis in Mariana Valencia’s Solo B,” Text & Performance Quarterly (2023).

“Tender Archives and the Closeness of Cheryl Sim’s The Thomas Wang Project.” Women & Performance:a journal of feminist theory. 31, no. 1 (2021).

On Gratitude.” Syndicate (Symposium on Julietta Singh’s Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements). 2020.

“Singing-With Nanook of the North: On Tanya Tagaq, Feeling Entangled, and Colonial Archives of Indigeneity.” ASAP/Journal 5, no. 1 (2020).

With James McMaster. “Introduction: The Between.” Special Issue of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 29, no. 3 (2019).

“In/hospitality & Un/inhabitability: Three Scenes in the Work of Lido Pimienta.” Canadian Theatre Review 177 (2019).

With Monika Kin Gagnon. “Gifts of Fringe.” In Dana Claxton, edited by Grant Arnold. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2018.


Olivia Michiko Gagnon

she/they
Assistant Professor, Theatre Studies
Research Area
ON LEAVE
Until September 2025

About

OLIVIA MICHIKO GAGNON, BA Hons (U. Toronto), MA (NYU), PhD (NYU), specializes in performance studies, with research and teaching interests in minoritarian performance, critical race and ethnic studies, feminist and queer theory, critical Indigenous studies, and performative/experimental writing. She is currently finishing her first monograph––On Closeness: Archives, Performance, and Forms of Relation––which theorizes closeness as a multivalent minoritarian method that moves between the aesthetic and the social. Their writing has appeared in ASAP/JournalText & Performance Quarterly, Canadian Theatre ReviewemisféricaSyndicate, C Magazine, and Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, where they were Managing Editor from 2017 – 2019 and are co-editor (with James McMaster) of a special issue titled The Between: Couple Forms, Performing Together. She has also written for the Vancouver Art Gallery (with Monika Kin Gagnon), the Belkin Gallery, Gallery 44, and the New Museum, and was formerly Managing Editor of HemiPress at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in New York City. They received their PhD and MA from the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, were formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts University, and have taught at NYU, Tufts, and Harvard University. At UBC, she is Affiliated Faculty in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration (ACAM) Studies and Faculty Associate at The Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice (GRSJ).


Teaching


Publications

Select Publications:

 “Moving Through Crisis in Mariana Valencia’s Solo B,” Text & Performance Quarterly (2023).

“Tender Archives and the Closeness of Cheryl Sim’s The Thomas Wang Project.” Women & Performance:a journal of feminist theory. 31, no. 1 (2021).

On Gratitude.” Syndicate (Symposium on Julietta Singh’s Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements). 2020.

“Singing-With Nanook of the North: On Tanya Tagaq, Feeling Entangled, and Colonial Archives of Indigeneity.” ASAP/Journal 5, no. 1 (2020).

With James McMaster. “Introduction: The Between.” Special Issue of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 29, no. 3 (2019).

“In/hospitality & Un/inhabitability: Three Scenes in the Work of Lido Pimienta.” Canadian Theatre Review 177 (2019).

With Monika Kin Gagnon. “Gifts of Fringe.” In Dana Claxton, edited by Grant Arnold. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2018.


Olivia Michiko Gagnon

she/they
Assistant Professor, Theatre Studies
ON LEAVE
Until September 2025
Research Area
About keyboard_arrow_down

OLIVIA MICHIKO GAGNON, BA Hons (U. Toronto), MA (NYU), PhD (NYU), specializes in performance studies, with research and teaching interests in minoritarian performance, critical race and ethnic studies, feminist and queer theory, critical Indigenous studies, and performative/experimental writing. She is currently finishing her first monograph––On Closeness: Archives, Performance, and Forms of Relation––which theorizes closeness as a multivalent minoritarian method that moves between the aesthetic and the social. Their writing has appeared in ASAP/JournalText & Performance Quarterly, Canadian Theatre ReviewemisféricaSyndicate, C Magazine, and Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, where they were Managing Editor from 2017 – 2019 and are co-editor (with James McMaster) of a special issue titled The Between: Couple Forms, Performing Together. She has also written for the Vancouver Art Gallery (with Monika Kin Gagnon), the Belkin Gallery, Gallery 44, and the New Museum, and was formerly Managing Editor of HemiPress at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in New York City. They received their PhD and MA from the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, were formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts University, and have taught at NYU, Tufts, and Harvard University. At UBC, she is Affiliated Faculty in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration (ACAM) Studies and Faculty Associate at The Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice (GRSJ).

Teaching keyboard_arrow_down
Publications keyboard_arrow_down

Select Publications:

 “Moving Through Crisis in Mariana Valencia’s Solo B,” Text & Performance Quarterly (2023).

“Tender Archives and the Closeness of Cheryl Sim’s The Thomas Wang Project.” Women & Performance:a journal of feminist theory. 31, no. 1 (2021).

On Gratitude.” Syndicate (Symposium on Julietta Singh’s Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements). 2020.

“Singing-With Nanook of the North: On Tanya Tagaq, Feeling Entangled, and Colonial Archives of Indigeneity.” ASAP/Journal 5, no. 1 (2020).

With James McMaster. “Introduction: The Between.” Special Issue of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 29, no. 3 (2019).

“In/hospitality & Un/inhabitability: Three Scenes in the Work of Lido Pimienta.” Canadian Theatre Review 177 (2019).

With Monika Kin Gagnon. “Gifts of Fringe.” In Dana Claxton, edited by Grant Arnold. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2018.