Debra Spitulnik Vidali
Emory University, Anthropology, Faculty Member
- Media Anthropology, Ethnography, Applied Theatre, Civic Engagement, Discourse Analysis, Democracy, and 14 moreHaudenosaunee Studies, Experimental Ethnography, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, Media Studies, Public Sphere, Documentary Theatre, Languages and Linguistics, Zambia, Bemba, Public Scholarship, Critical Discourse Analysis, Anthropology of Media, and Performance Studiesedit
- Recent work at: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5489-3906 I am an anthropologist, theater-maker, artist, and scholar-act... moreRecent work at: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5489-3906
I am an anthropologist, theater-maker, artist, and scholar-activist. My work is centered on building bridges across disciplines and experimenting with the modalities & frontiers of knowledge production.
Recent projects are built at the intersection of social science, theater-making, performance, and multimodal/multisensorial ethnography. Topics include: civic engagement, social justice & human rights, embodiment, media, language, and Indigenous sovereignty.
Feel free to browse around this site to learn more about experiments in the current areas listed below, as well my earlier work on radio and language in Zambia.
• Ethnographic theater-making
Re-Generation Initiative (2009-present). Projects/workshops: State of the Nation, #WaterIsLife, Slices of Time, Re-Generation, and more.
• Ethnographic installations
Kabusha Radio Remix (2014-present). Exhibited in London, Paris, and Washington DC.
Audio paper: Collisions of Memory (2017)
• Short-form multimodal narrative/spoken word
The Sign at the Threshold (2017)
• Multisensorial anthropology
position statement: Retrofit (2016)
In addition to being a faculty member in Emory University’s Department of Anthropology, I am a founding member and Core Faculty of Emory's Program in Linguistics, an Associate Faculty Member of the Department of Film & Media Studies, and an Affiliated Faculty Member in the Department of Theater and Dance. From 2018-2021, I directed the Experimental Ethnography Working Group at Emory.edit
Short-form multimodal narrative/spoken word meditation on the power of radio, boundaries, globalization, ethnographic entanglements, multi-sensorial resonances, and illusions of purity. An homage to Guglielmo Marconi, the Mediterranean... more
Short-form multimodal narrative/spoken word meditation on the power of radio, boundaries, globalization, ethnographic entanglements, multi-sensorial resonances, and illusions of purity. An homage to Guglielmo Marconi, the Mediterranean Sea, and family. (Note: a sound and image link is embedded in the publication.)
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/our-electric-air
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/our-electric-air
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Multi-modal publication with text, images, and audio (16.54). https://seismograf.org/en/fokus/sound-art-matters/collisions-of-memory-voice-sound-and-physicality-though-a-multi-sensorial-radio-remix Abstract: The ethnographic... more
Multi-modal publication with text, images, and audio (16.54).
https://seismograf.org/en/fokus/sound-art-matters/collisions-of-memory-voice-sound-and-physicality-though-a-multi-sensorial-radio-remix
Abstract: The ethnographic installation “Kabusha Radio Remix” repurposes Bemba language recordings from the archived audio recordings from one of Radio Zambia’s most popular programmes, Kabusha Takolelwe Bowa (a Bemba proverb meaning “The Person Who Inquires First, Is Not Poisoned by a Mushroom”). In the programme, host David Yumba answered listeners’ letters about politics, society, family, and current events, as they were read aloud by co-host Emelda Yumbe. Central to the installation is a reengineered 60-minute Kabusha “radio program” that mimics its original format. This version, however, juxtaposes Yumba’s recorded responses as answers to present-day inquiries about politics, the technicalities of archives, current Zambian and global politics.
This audio paper, framed as a conversation, addresses the collision of the tactile and the sonic, and discusses how sonic frontiers are exploited and transgressed in the engineered sound mix and via visitors’ engagements with the installation, inviting visitors to “encounter voices and images from the past in a technological space that is both historical and contemporary” (Stoller 2015). The paper addresses how the installation works as a digital hypertext to analogue ephemera, and how issues of subject agency, immortality, translation, wisdom, ownership, truth, and the media-democracy relationship are thrown into bold relief.
https://seismograf.org/en/fokus/sound-art-matters/collisions-of-memory-voice-sound-and-physicality-though-a-multi-sensorial-radio-remix
Abstract: The ethnographic installation “Kabusha Radio Remix” repurposes Bemba language recordings from the archived audio recordings from one of Radio Zambia’s most popular programmes, Kabusha Takolelwe Bowa (a Bemba proverb meaning “The Person Who Inquires First, Is Not Poisoned by a Mushroom”). In the programme, host David Yumba answered listeners’ letters about politics, society, family, and current events, as they were read aloud by co-host Emelda Yumbe. Central to the installation is a reengineered 60-minute Kabusha “radio program” that mimics its original format. This version, however, juxtaposes Yumba’s recorded responses as answers to present-day inquiries about politics, the technicalities of archives, current Zambian and global politics.
This audio paper, framed as a conversation, addresses the collision of the tactile and the sonic, and discusses how sonic frontiers are exploited and transgressed in the engineered sound mix and via visitors’ engagements with the installation, inviting visitors to “encounter voices and images from the past in a technological space that is both historical and contemporary” (Stoller 2015). The paper addresses how the installation works as a digital hypertext to analogue ephemera, and how issues of subject agency, immortality, translation, wisdom, ownership, truth, and the media-democracy relationship are thrown into bold relief.
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What cracks open by mobilizing the phrase multisensorial anthropology? Is it an invitation to shed competitive logocentrism? A challenge to exorcise the domestic? A promise of disciplinary longevity and relevance that meets the... more
What cracks open by mobilizing the phrase multisensorial anthropology? Is it an invitation to shed competitive logocentrism? A challenge to exorcise the domestic? A promise of disciplinary longevity and relevance that meets the fullness of being human? Is mobilizing this phrase really just a retrofit, keeping pace with what’s already going on? Is it a reality check vis-à-vis publishing trends? Okay, enough of the rhetoric. What cracks open is all of the above and more. At once a polemical roast, meditation, review, and commentary, this essay offers nine points to get the conversation started, and suggests how 'intellectual' anthropology might be fully human.
Note: The first page of the online journal’s pdf listing has a different article, since the pdf includes a wider page range (pp. 391-407). Vidali article is in the middle of the set.
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aman.12595
Vidali, Debra Spitulnik. 2016. Multisensorial Anthropology: A Retrofit Cracking Open of the Field. American Anthropologist 118(2):395-400.
Note: The first page of the online journal’s pdf listing has a different article, since the pdf includes a wider page range (pp. 391-407). Vidali article is in the middle of the set.
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aman.12595
Vidali, Debra Spitulnik. 2016. Multisensorial Anthropology: A Retrofit Cracking Open of the Field. American Anthropologist 118(2):395-400.
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Abstract: Boundary crossing allows for new forms of knowledge creation and dissemination, while simultaneously activating frictions within established cultures of academic production and reception. This chapter explores how disciplinary... more
Abstract: Boundary crossing allows for new forms of knowledge creation and dissemination, while simultaneously activating frictions within established cultures of academic production and reception. This chapter explores how disciplinary expectations in anthropology are released and challenged as ethnographic research is rendered into theatrical forms. The chapter highlights the delimiting functions of oppositions such as “social science vs. humanities” and “pure vs. applied research,” and suggests ways of moving beyond such dualisms. The exposition focuses on the production and reception of a verbatim documentary theatrical work based on the author’s ethnographic research into young adults’ experiences during the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Keywords: Academic culture, Democracy, Ethnography, Media, Theatre, U.S., Young adults.
Keywords: Academic culture, Democracy, Ethnography, Media, Theatre, U.S., Young adults.
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This essay explores the complicities of silence and works to redress the lack of public knowledge about Native Americans, through an exposé of the glaring silences at Atlanta’s new Center for Civil and Human Rights. I ask: What is the... more
This essay explores the complicities of silence and works to redress the lack of public knowledge about Native Americans, through an exposé of the glaring silences at Atlanta’s new Center for Civil and Human Rights. I ask: What is the price of remaining silent about and ignorant of the human rights abuses that have occurred and are occurring on our own soil? What is the price of remaining disconnected from Native American histories and present-day realities? Who benefits from silence and disconnection? And how can we tell more complete stories? Elements of my own journey to repair screaming silences both on the teaching front and in my personal life are also brought into this reflection.
A version of this essay appears in Anthropology Now (citation below), which is available for free through university libraries, but it is not open access. The manuscript is provided here so that a wider public can read the article and use the links for further information and education.
Debra Spitulnik Vidali. “Repairing a Screaming Silence: Human Rights and Wrongs, Native American Realities and One Museum,” Anthropology Now 7(3), December 2015:42-53.
A version of this essay appears in Anthropology Now (citation below), which is available for free through university libraries, but it is not open access. The manuscript is provided here so that a wider public can read the article and use the links for further information and education.
Debra Spitulnik Vidali. “Repairing a Screaming Silence: Human Rights and Wrongs, Native American Realities and One Museum,” Anthropology Now 7(3), December 2015:42-53.
Research Interests: American History, Native American Studies, Anthropology, Education, Indigenous Studies, and 10 moreMuseum Studies, Human Rights, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Social Representations, Storytelling, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Movement, Humanistic Anthropology, Genocide, and Visibility/invisibility
Our starting point in this chapter is a threefold definition of ethnography: as a fieldwork method; as an analytical lens; and as a style of writing and re-presentation. With the exception of the path-breaking newsroom studies by... more
Our starting point in this chapter is a threefold definition of ethnography: as a fieldwork method; as an analytical lens; and as a style of writing and re-presentation. With the exception of the path-breaking newsroom studies by sociologists such as Gans (1980), Gitlin (1983) and Tuchman (1978), the qualitative method of ethnography has been largely under-utilized in the field of political communication. Recent advances in media anthropology, as well as in the more long-standing ethnography of communication tradition, provide a rich source of both theoretical and methodological models for deepening and expanding the study of political communication in contemporary contexts. We argue that ethnographic research is more important than ever as a way of grounding research on globalization in concrete locales, and as a check on assumptions generalized from anecdotal evidence. We also argue for ethnography as a method for enriching the understanding of media effects and influence, as well as for capturing not only the everyday workings of political communication, but the deeply human experience of political communication on both the production and reception ends. This chapter provides an introduction to both the theory and method of ethnography, as it reviews existing research and charts out new directions for future research, particularly around the topics of citizenship, modernity, globalization, national publics and new media. It considers both the ethnography of media production and the ethnography of media reception, as well as the ethnography of political discourse more broadly conceived.
Citation: Debra Spitulnik Vidali and Mark Allen Peterson. 2012. “Ethnography as Theory and Method in the Study of Political Communication.” In The SAGE Handbook of Political Communication. Edited by Holli A. Semetko and Margaret Scammell. London: Sage. Pp. 264-275.
Citation: Debra Spitulnik Vidali and Mark Allen Peterson. 2012. “Ethnography as Theory and Method in the Study of Political Communication.” In The SAGE Handbook of Political Communication. Edited by Holli A. Semetko and Margaret Scammell. London: Sage. Pp. 264-275.
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Re-Generation 2008 / 2012: Portraits of (Dis)Engagement uses techniques of verbatim documentary theater and generative theater to explore the meanings of civic engagement, democracy, and being a young adult. It is a collaboratively... more
Re-Generation 2008 / 2012: Portraits of (Dis)Engagement uses techniques of verbatim documentary theater and generative theater to explore the meanings of civic engagement, democracy, and being a young adult. It is a collaboratively created performance piece, developed under the direction of Ken Hornbeck, through the original experiences of the acting ensemble of 10 students and professional actors, and in dialogue with Debra Vidali’s first play and anthropological research on young adults. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLQwDpejlHs
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Re-Generation 2008/2012: Portraits of (Dis) Engagement was performed at Emory University’s Schwartz Center on October 1-3, 2012. Re-Generation 2008/2012 takes elements from Debra Vidali’s first play, Re- Generation: A Play about... more
Re-Generation 2008/2012: Portraits of (Dis) Engagement was performed at Emory University’s Schwartz Center on October 1-3, 2012. Re-Generation 2008/2012 takes elements from Debra Vidali’s first play, Re- Generation: A Play about Political Stances, Media Insanity, and Adult Responsibilities, which is a verbatim documentary play about the 2008 election cycle. That work was developed in 2009-2010 with the assistance of Amreen Ukani (Emory C‘07) and with grants from the Center for Creativity & Arts. Approximately 80% of the character lines derive directly from Vidali’s anthropological research interviews and fieldwork, representing the real voices, real words, and real lives of over 90 young adults from all walks of life.
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Young people’s political consciousness does not suddenly materialize, nor does it emerge fully formed and clearly crystallized. Rather, just like consciousness of one’s place in the world, political consciousness evolves over time.... more
Young people’s political consciousness does not suddenly materialize, nor does it emerge fully formed and clearly crystallized. Rather, just like consciousness of one’s place in the world, political consciousness evolves over time. Sometimes it is murky. Sometimes it is found in actions, other times in words. Usually it is very charged with emotion, be it hope, outrage, apathy, devotion, righteousness, mania, or distrust. Often political consciousness is in dialogue with how we’ve lived, who we’ve met, what we’ve heard, and who we want to be. Slogans, buzz words, and the swirl of media around us all shape our political stances and our political possibilities.
Through both drama and humor, this play explores these themes through the real voices, real words, and real lives of dozens of young people that I met and interviewed between 2006 and 2008. During this time, approximately 90 young people from all walks of life participated in interviews and conversation groups on the topics of media and politics.
Through both drama and humor, this play explores these themes through the real voices, real words, and real lives of dozens of young people that I met and interviewed between 2006 and 2008. During this time, approximately 90 young people from all walks of life participated in interviews and conversation groups on the topics of media and politics.
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Related publications can be found on this site. Also see Re-Generation Initiative on Facebook and YouTube. This is an excerpt of the 9/30/09 version of the verbatim documentary theater script by Spitulnik (Vidali) and Ukani,... more
Related publications can be found on this site. Also see Re-Generation Initiative on Facebook and YouTube.
This is an excerpt of the 9/30/09 version of the verbatim documentary theater script by Spitulnik (Vidali) and Ukani, entitled, Re-Generation: A Play about Political Stances, Media Insanity, and Adult Responsibilities.
The project was performed in 2010 and 2012, and appears on DVD and video. Approximately 90% of the script is directly verbatim from transcripts of recorded conversations in Atlanta GA, as part of Vidali's ongoing anthropological research on young adults' engagements with media and politics.
The 2009 script was tightened and modified during and after theatrical workshops/performances in 2010, and after screenings of the Re-Generation DVD (a 2010 recorded performance) in 2011 and 2012. Other versions of the theatrical work were performed in 2012. Since 2009, Spitulnik changed her name to Vidali, and Ukani left the project.
This excerpt of the original playscript is posted to provide an overview of the history, vision, and architecture of the documentary project.
Feel free to contact Debra Vidali (debra.vidali@emory.edu) for further details, collaborations, etc.
All rights reserved. (c) Debra Vidali
This is an excerpt of the 9/30/09 version of the verbatim documentary theater script by Spitulnik (Vidali) and Ukani, entitled, Re-Generation: A Play about Political Stances, Media Insanity, and Adult Responsibilities.
The project was performed in 2010 and 2012, and appears on DVD and video. Approximately 90% of the script is directly verbatim from transcripts of recorded conversations in Atlanta GA, as part of Vidali's ongoing anthropological research on young adults' engagements with media and politics.
The 2009 script was tightened and modified during and after theatrical workshops/performances in 2010, and after screenings of the Re-Generation DVD (a 2010 recorded performance) in 2011 and 2012. Other versions of the theatrical work were performed in 2012. Since 2009, Spitulnik changed her name to Vidali, and Ukani left the project.
This excerpt of the original playscript is posted to provide an overview of the history, vision, and architecture of the documentary project.
Feel free to contact Debra Vidali (debra.vidali@emory.edu) for further details, collaborations, etc.
All rights reserved. (c) Debra Vidali
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This was a fast-tracked performance project, collaboratively created in the space of 24 hours, among a mixed group of performing arts educators, practitioners and non-specialists, most of whom had never met. The seven-minute performance... more
This was a fast-tracked performance project, collaboratively created in the space of 24 hours, among a mixed group of performing arts educators, practitioners and non-specialists, most of whom had never met. The seven-minute performance was created from material that emerged during an ethnographic and generative theater workshop, facilitated by anthropologist Debra Vidali and artistic director Ken Hornbeck on the afternoon of October 10, 2014. The focal themes were “Higher Education, Democracy, and Well-Being.” 25 people participated in the workshop. On the morning of the following day (October 11, 2014), the project was fine-tuned and rehearsed by six workshop participants for 40 minutes. That afternoon, it was performed by eight workshop participants as an offering at the closing plenary session of the annual Imagining America conference, co-hosted by Emory University in Atlanta.
This is the playbill for our collaborative Ethnographic Theater project based on original research. Created and activated by 18 students in the Spring 2015 "Ethnography, Theater, and Performance" class (Prof. Debra Vidali, Anthropology),... more
This is the playbill for our collaborative Ethnographic Theater project based on original research. Created and activated by 18 students in the Spring 2015 "Ethnography, Theater, and Performance" class (Prof. Debra Vidali, Anthropology), directed by Ken Hornbeck. Performed April 25, 2015, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bWWneGPtQs
More info: https://www.facebook.com/ReGenerationInitiative
More info: https://www.facebook.com/ReGenerationInitiative
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A hub for Bemba language scholarship, linguistic analysis, digital texts, and streaming audio in the Bemba language. Bemba is the most widely spoken language in Zambia, with over 7 million speakers. Here you will find a wide range of... more
A hub for Bemba language scholarship, linguistic analysis, digital texts, and streaming audio in the Bemba language.
Bemba is the most widely spoken language in Zambia, with over 7 million speakers. Here you will find a wide range of Bemba language scholarship and resources, including: sociolinguistic and grammatical analyses of the Bemba language, digital texts and audio in Bemba, an extensive bibliography, and numerous links to further resources. In the future we hope to also include an archived set of Bemba language radio programs from the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), with selections from the period of 1986-1990.
The Bemba Online Project is for Bemba language learners, Bemba language speakers, African studies scholars, comparative and typological linguistics scholars, and others with interest in language, oral traditions, media, civic engagement, and social change in Africa and beyond. We envision that this project will serve as an inspiration for digital archives in other Zambian languages.
The Bemba Online Project is a project developed by linguistic anthropologist and media studies scholar Professor Debra Spitulnik Vidali (Anthropology, Emory University). It is generously supported by the Emory University Halle Institute for Global Learning, the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, the Emory University Department of Anthropology, and the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship. Major contributors to the project include: Jayne Kangwa, Mubanga Kashoki, Makasa Kasonde, Maidstone Mulenga, Bella Siangonya, and Yuan He.
Bemba is the most widely spoken language in Zambia, with over 7 million speakers. Here you will find a wide range of Bemba language scholarship and resources, including: sociolinguistic and grammatical analyses of the Bemba language, digital texts and audio in Bemba, an extensive bibliography, and numerous links to further resources. In the future we hope to also include an archived set of Bemba language radio programs from the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), with selections from the period of 1986-1990.
The Bemba Online Project is for Bemba language learners, Bemba language speakers, African studies scholars, comparative and typological linguistics scholars, and others with interest in language, oral traditions, media, civic engagement, and social change in Africa and beyond. We envision that this project will serve as an inspiration for digital archives in other Zambian languages.
The Bemba Online Project is a project developed by linguistic anthropologist and media studies scholar Professor Debra Spitulnik Vidali (Anthropology, Emory University). It is generously supported by the Emory University Halle Institute for Global Learning, the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, the Emory University Department of Anthropology, and the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship. Major contributors to the project include: Jayne Kangwa, Mubanga Kashoki, Makasa Kasonde, Maidstone Mulenga, Bella Siangonya, and Yuan He.