Scott Venters

Scott Venters is currently a candidate in the University of Washington’s PhD program in Theatre History, Theory, and Criticism and a member of UW’s Critical Animal Studies and Performance Studies research clusters.  Scott received his BFA in Drama from the University of Oklahoma, his BA in English and Philosophy from CUNY-Hunter College, and his MA in Theatre from Oklahoma State University.  His research focuses on animals in cultural and scientific “performance” during the rise of liberalism, political contractarianism, and colonialism between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and the Americas.  Working within (and against) posthumanist and biopolitical frameworks, Scott also actively participates in scholarship and activism that critically engage current interspecies relations and the human appropriation of animal life. He is the recipient of the Ruth Limmer Bequest for graduate study in the humanities, the Outstanding Paper Award from ATHE’s Religion and Theatre focus group, and has presented multiple papers at ASTR, ATHE, and MATC.  Scott is published in New England Theatre Journaland soon to be in the 2016 issue of Theatre History Studies.