© photo by Jeff Day

J.M. DeLeon

J. M. DeLeon

Doctoral Student Fellow

Doctoral Student, Department of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts

J. M. DeLeon is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Performance Studies. Previous education includes an MA in Performance Studies at NYU (2009), and a BA in theatre directing and critical theory, with a minor in queer studies, at UCLA (2004). Research interests include feminist and queer theory; identity politics and separatist movements; aesthetics and spectatorship; collaboration, rehearsal and amateur performance. In addition to the Humanities Initiative fellowship, DeLeon has received NYU’s Corrigan Fellowship, the Performance Studies MA Departmental Fellowship, and the Paulette Goddard Award. DeLeon is former managing editor of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory (2010-11).

DeLeon’s dissertation project is titled “Let Me Listen To Me”: The Politics and Aesthetics of Self-Indulgence. The accusation of “self-indulgence” functions as a subtle disciplining of artists who demonstrate an improper investment in the value of the non-normative self—in particular: queer, feminist and/or artists of color. This dissertation moves to transvalue these degraded selves by examining self-indulgence in performance, and arguing for the radical potential of self-indulgence, both personal and aesthetic, as a strategy for flourishing beyond the bare subsistence of normative survival.