Ricardo A. Bracho is a queer Chicano Marxist playwright from Los Angeles whose theatrical works dramatize the lives of gay Black and Brown partisans of anti-capitalism and decolonization. Characterized by their playful use of theory, Bracho’s plays utilize the stage as a place for characters to debate questions of sexual and political liberation. Though Bracho’s work has been breaking ground within the experimental Latinx theater and arts community since the 1990s, his plays have not been widely accessible beyond their staging. Driven by passion—for politics, for the dancefloor, for...
Actor-turned-writer/director Barbara Loden's only feature film, Wanda (1970), tells the story of an alienated working-class woman, Wanda Goronski (played by Loden), who abandons her life as a coal miner's wife and mother, electing instead to drift. Bracing in its realist texture and proto-feminist in its sensibility, it received critical acclaim upon release, winning the Critics' Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1970. Today, Wanda is considered one of the most notable films made by a woman director and a core work of American independent cinema.Elena Gorfinkel's study of this singular film traces Loden's creative process and unconventional approach to filmmaking. Drawing on archival sources, including scripts, interviews, production records, oral...
The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
