FASS Staff Profile
MIGUEL ESCOBAR VARELA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT of ENGLISH, LINGUISTICS & THEATRE STUDIES
- Appointment:
- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
- Office:
- AS5/05-13
- Email:
- m.escobar@nus.edu.sg
- Tel:
- 65168779
- Fax:
- Homepage:
- http://miguelescobar.com
Brief Introduction
I am a theatre researcher, web developer and translator who has lived in Mexico, The Netherlands, Singapore and Indonesia. My main interests are the digital/computational humanities and the theatre performances of Southeast Asia (primarily in Java, Indonesia).
My work is guided by two questions:
- How to combine computational methods (natural language processing, network analysis, video processing and geospatial analysis) with ethnographic and historical methods to study theatre performances?
- How to leverage best practices from user experience design (UX) to develop interactive, multimedia platforms to communicate scholarly research to a wider audience?
To answer these questions I often collaborate with scientists and engineers. At NUS I teach courses on computational thinking for the humanities, theatre in Southeast Asia and interaction design for intercultural exchanges.
My book Theater as data: computational journeys into theater research (University of Michigan Press, 2021) is freely available as Open Access here.
Examples of my work can be seen at miguelescobar.com.
Teaching Areas
TS4217 Cultural Performance in Asia
UAR2207 Reinventing Intercultural Excahnges (at the University Scholars Programme)
GEK2050 Computers and the Humanities
TS5101 Text and Performance
Graduate Supervision
I am interested in supervising projects in any of the following areas:
*The role of digital technology in live performance
*Indonesian theatre
*Digital Humanities methods for the study of theatre
*Any project requiring ethnographic research and/or systematic audiovisual documentation of a performance practice
Current Research
My current research projects focus on the application of computational methods to the study of theatre. These include textual analytics, network analysis, image and video processing and geospatial analysis. For this work, I often collaborate with scientists and engineers.
My secondary area of research is the development of multimedia interfaces for theatre research.
Research Interests
- Indonesian Theatre and Performance
- Combining computational and interpretive methods in theatre research
- Developing user interfaces for theatre scholarship
Publications
BOOKS/MONOGRAPHS AUTHORED
- M. Escobar Varela, Theater as data: computational journeys into theatre research (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021). [Open Access]
ARTICLES IN JOURNALS
-
- M. Escobar Varela and L. Hernández-Barraza. 'Digital Dance Scholarship: Biomechanics and culturally-situated dance analysis' in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Vol. 35, Issue 1 (2020).
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Towards a digital, data-driven wayang kulit encyclopedia: histories, experiments and epistemological reflections' in Indonesia and the Malay World Vol. 47, Issue 137 (2019).
- M. Escobar Varela. 'The dramaturgy of theatre fieldtrips: studying cultural relativism in situ' in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance Vol. 24, Issue 2(2019).
- A. Schauf and M. Escobar Varela. 'Searching for hidden bridges in co-occurrence networks from Javanese wayang kulit' in Journal of Historical Network Research Vol. 2, No 1 (2018), pp. 26-52.
- M. Escobar Varela and Nala H. Lee. 'Language documentation: a reference point for theatre and performance archives?' in International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media Vol. 14, No 1 (2018), pp. 17-33.
- "The Archive as Repertoire: Transience and Sustainability in Digital Archives", in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2016).
- M. Escobar Varela and Gea Oswah Fatah Parikesit. 'A Quantitative Close Analysis of a Theatre Video Recording' in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities Vol. 32, No 2 (2017), pp. 276-283.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Heirlooms of the Everyday: The Material Performances of Slamet Gundono' in Theatre Research International, Vol. 41 No. 1 (2016), pp. 53-69.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Hacking and Rehearsing, Experiments in Creative Tinkering' in New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 01 (2016), pp. 68-77.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Interoperable Performance Research: Promises and Perils of the Semantic Web' in TDR, Vol. 60, No. 3 (2016), pp. 136-147.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'The essay/ontology workflow, challenges in combining formal and interpretive methods' in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2016), pp. 84-94.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Wayang Hip Hop: Java's Oldest Performance Tradition Meets Global Youth Culture' in Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2014), pp. 481-504.
- M. Escobar Varela and Paul Rae. 'International, A Dialogue' in Contemporary Theatre Review, Special Issue: The Politics, Processes and Practices of Editing, Vol. 25, Issue 1 (2015)
- M. Escobar Varela. 'The Intermedial Interrogation of Memory' in Performance Research, Vol. 17, Issue 3 (2012), pp. 33-38.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Nieuwe-mediafestivals als Voedingsbodem voor Diversiteit' [New Media Festivals as Seedbeds for Diversity] in Boekman Tijdsdschrrft, Vol. 83 (2010), pp. 88-92.
CHAPTERS IN BOOKS
-
- M. Escobar Varela, M. Stanley-Baker and A. Nanetti 'The Digital Humanities in Singapore' in R. Wong, H. Li and M Chou (eds), Digital Humanities and Scholarly Research Trends in the Asia-Pacific Hershey, Pennsylvania: IGI Global (2019).
- M. Escobar Varela. 'What is an intercultural exchange?' in M. Bleeker, H. Roms, A. Kear, & J. Kelleher (eds.), Thinking Through Theatre and Performance. London: Methuen Bloomsbury (2019).
- M. Escobar Varela. 'From Copper-Plate Inscriptions to Interactive Websites: Documenting Javanese Wayang Theatre' in Toni Sant (ed) Documenting Performance: The Context and Processes of Digital Curation and Archiving (London; New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), pp. 203–14.
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Between Radical Adaptation and Strategic Adaptability: Ki Catur "Benyek" Kuncoro in Conversation with Miguel Escobar' in Margherita Laera (ed), Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat (London: Methuen, 2014).
- M. Escobar Varela. 'Ruang Rupa: Experimental Video Workshops and Activism in Indonesia' in Paul de Buryne and Pascal Gielen (eds), Community Art: The Politics of Trespassing (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2010), pp. 287-298.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
-
- Network Analysis Shows Previously Unreported Features Of Javanese Traditional Theatre, Digital Humanities 2018 Bridges/Puentes, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and El Colegio de México, 25-29 June 2018. Slides.
- Augmented dance scholarship: computer assisted analysis of Javanese dance (with Luis Hernández-Barraza), Digital Humanities 2017 Access/Accès, McGill University and the Université de Montréal, 8-11 August, 2017. Slides.
- 'The Contemporary Wayang Archive: Javanese Theater as Data', Digital Humanities Abu Dhabi, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, April 10-12, 2017.
- 'Contextualization Tools for Digital Archives', Inaugural Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA), Stellenbosch University, South Africa, January 17-20, 2017
- 'The DH Scholar as an Intermediary: Connecting Physics and Theatre Scholarship', Digital Humanities and Digial Archives 2016, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, December 1-3, 2016.
- Luis Hernandez, Chen-Hua Yeow and Miguel Escobar Varela. 'A Biomechanical analysis of traditional javanese dance styles' 16th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, December 4-7, 2016.
- 'The Mouse-Deer and the Captured Princess: The Reinterpretation of Javanese Literary Characters in Ecological Theatre Performances', ASLE-ASEAN: Global in the Local, National Univesrity of Singapore, Singapore, August 1-2, 2016.
- 'Arduino Circuits and Javanese Puppets: Re-materializing Digital Archives through Tangible Interfaces', Digital Humanities 2016, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, 11-16 July, 2016.
- 'Circuits and Puppets: Re-materializing Digital Archives through Tangible Interfaces', International Federation for Theatre Research 2016 Presenting the Theatrical Past, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, June 13-17, 2016.
- 'Digital Archives and Digital Methods: An Indonesian Case Study', International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, December 9-12, 2015.
- 'Non-hegemonic Interoperability: Towards a Global Conversation in Digital Performance Research' DH2015 Global Digital Humanities, University of Western Sydney, Australia, June 29 - July 3, 2015.
- 'The Archive as Repertoire' at Digital Densities, Digital Humanities Incubator, University of Melbourne, Australia, March 2015.
- 'Digital Essays as Tools For Cultural Mediation' at DHA14: Digital Humanities Australasia, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, March 2014.
- 'The Contemporary Wayang Archive: A Digital Inquiry into the Ethics and Aesthetics of a Theatre Tradition', poster presentation, at the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, September 2013.
- 'Wayang Hip Hop: Java's Oldest Tradition Meets Global Youth Culture', at Global Encounters in Southeast Asian Performing Arts, Bangkok University, Bangkok, Thailand, February 2013.
- 'Intermediality in Wayang Kulit', at PSi Performance Studies international #17 - Camillo 2.0, Utrecht, The Netherlands, May 2011.
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