Undergraduate Student Published in The Classic Journal

Please join us in celebrating the achievement of Lamar Dodd School of Art undergraduate student Penske McCormack for the following publication in The Classic Journal: “The Body as the Universe: Hijikata Tatsumi’s Ankoku Butoh and Georges Bataille’s Informe.”

The essay investigates the transgressive dance form Ankoku Butoh. Sometimes referred to as just “Butoh”, this avant-garde postwar Japanese dance is often translated to “Dance of Utter Darkness.” In the essay, McCormack argues that Butoh uses Georges Bataille’s theory of informe, or formlessness, to undermine the purity of form Modernism promoted at the time.

Penske McCormack is a fourth-year art history major and studio art minor at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. They will be studying art conservation after graduation, with the intent to focus on object conservation. They are interested in phenomenology and the role of material in cultural performance, as well as the repositioning of the mind and body as material rather than concept.

The Classic Journal is dedicated to showcasing critical writing and research composed by University of Georgia undergraduate students enrolled in Writing Intensive Program courses or upper-division writing-intensive courses.

You can read the article here.

Example of “Butoh”