We hope you will join us for an enriching discussion of Susan Manning's latest book. Snacks will be served.

Please RSVP for the reading group here:
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Dancing on the Fault Lines of History (University of Michigan Press, 2025) collects essential essays by Susan Manning, one of the founders of critical dance studies, recounting her career writing and rewriting the history of modern dance. Three sets of keywords—gender and sexuality, whiteness and Blackness, nationality and globalization—illuminate modern dance histories from multiple angles, coming together in varied combinations, shifting positions from foreground to background. Among the many artists discussed are Isadora Duncan, Vaslav Nijinsky, Ted Shawn, Helen Tamiris, Katherine Dunham, José Limón, Pina Bausch, Reggie Wilson, and Nelisiwe Xaba. Calling for a comparative and transnational historiography, Manning ends with an extended case study of Mary Wigman’s multidimensional exchange with artists from Indonesia, India, China, Korea, and Japan.

Susan Manning (she/her), Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, is jointly appointed in English, Theatre, and Performance Studies. Specializing in dance and movement-based performance, she teaches the history of theatrical modernism and avant-garde performance. She has worked as a curator and dramaturge as well as a scholar, and her writings have been translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Polish.