Writing

Feminist Pedagogy in Medias Res (2020)

A personal essay about my time working with documentary filmmaker Frances Negron-Muntaner.

The Price of Salvation: Visual and Narrative Representations of Climate Change in 21st Century US Climate Cinema (2020)

Abstract: “This research aims to understand how visual and narrative representations of climate change create ethical frameworks that determine who responds to climate issues and when. The core question asks: What is the sociality of climate change in US Climate Cinema? By using fiction films as the dataset, it asserts that narrative production of climate change can shape beliefs and understandings of climate change, especially in places where its visceral experience may not be as acutely felt. This research establishes an ecocritical-Marxist-feminist approach to Grounded Theory in order to analyse four fiction films created and distributed in the US in the 21st century: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Avengers: Infinity War, Erin Brockovich, and mother!. Drawing on Deleuze’s theory of multiplicity, it uses spatio-temporality to facilitate analysis of responsibility and scale as two key registers that impact epistemological understandings of climate change and thus responses that arise. By analysing Three-Act structure and allegory, it demonstrates how narrative devices frame and normalise emotional responses and specifically neoliberal responsibilisation. The key argument is that US Climate Cinema codifies and reinforces sacrifice zones, drawing upon racist, classist, and patriarchal structures to determine who is placed within these sacrifice zones.”

Please email michellecheripka [at] gmail [dot] com to read a copy.

CENTO (2016)

Starring five archetypes and set in a beginner’s improv class, CENTO is a devised play, written entirely in quotes.

CENTO was selected and performed as part of the Columbia University Performing Arts League’s Special Project series. CENTO was sponsored by Columbia University’s Miller Arts Initiative.

To watch a trailer for CENTO, please click here.

To read CENTO, please click here (or here for a footnoted version).