Viral Stagings Across the Globe: Performing Identity in the Era of COVID-19

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Acknowledgments

The Recalibrating Diasporas Research Cluster extends thanks for varying intellectual guidance and scholarly support generously offered by: the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, Dhantu Charandasi, Freya Cheffers, Peter Davies, Alasdair Dempsey, Deborah Gare, Helena Grehan, May Joseph, Simone Lazaroo, Samuel Makinda, Paul Marotta, Nilesh Makwana, Toby Miller, Vijay Mishra, Paula Muraca, Dave Perry, Michelle Picard, Stephen Platt, Jenny de Reuck, Edward L. Taylor, Rajeev Varshney, colleagues and attendees who participated in 2019's Recalibrating Diasporas conference, and our ART 208 students at Murdoch University. Finally, thanks to Sally Knowles and Rochelle Spencer for kindly facilitating completion of this essay at the Djilba Writing Away Retreat, 19-23 September 2022, sponsored by the Centre for Responsible Citizenship and Sustainability (CRCS), Murdoch University.

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Rahul K. Gairola

Rahul K. Gairola, PhD (University of Washington, Seattle) is The Krishna Somers Senior Lecturer in English & Postcolonial Literature and a Fellow of the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Western Australia. He is co-editor and author/ co-author of five books including Memory, Trauma, Asia: Recall, Affect, and Orientalism in Contemporary Narratives (Routledge, 2021); South Asian Digital Humanities: Postcolonial Mediations across Technology's Cultural Canon (Routledge, 2020); Migration, Gender and Home Economics in Rural North India (Routledge, 2019); and Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belonging (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016). He has also co-edited special issues of Journal of Postcolonial Writing, South Asian Review, and Asiascape: Digital Asia, and has widely published in reputable, peer-reviewed forums. Routledge appointed him Editor of its Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) South Asian Book Series in 2019, the same year The Digital Studio, University of Melbourne, appointed him Digital Champion for the State of Western Australia. He previously taught at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India; and Queens College and York College, The City University of New York, US. Since 2018, he has served as Principal Investigator of the Recalibrating Diasporas Research Cluster based in the School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences (SHASS), Murdoch University. He is a matriculated Lifetime Member of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and is currently working on two major publications for Routledge and one for Oxford University Press.

Lauren O’Mahony

Lauren O’Mahony, PhD (Murdoch University, Western Australia) is a Senior Lecturer in Communications at Murdoch University, Western Australia. Much of her research focusses on Australian women’s literature as well as the analysis of popular television, creativity, media audiences, and creative non-fiction. Her published research has appeared in Journal of Postcolonial Writing, The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, The Journal of Popular Romance Studies, Communication Research and Practice, and Text Journal. Dr O’Mahony has also published chapters in the edited volumes Theorizing Ethnicity in the Chick-Lit Genre (2019), The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction (2021), and Interrogating Boundaries of the Nonhuman (2022). In 2023, Palgrave Macmillan will publish Creativity and Innovation: Everyday Dynamics and Practice, a book that she has co-authored with Dr Terence Lee (Murdoch University) and Dr Pia Lebeck (Murdoch University).

Melissa Merchant

Melissa Merchant, PhD (Murdoch University, Western Australia) is a Lecturer in English and Theatre and Academic Chair of English and Creative Arts at Murdoch University. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Dr Merchant’s most recent research has been divided between contemporary performativity, theatre history and Shakespearean adaptations, including Restoration adaptations and popular culture appropriations. She has contributed to Journal of Postcolonial Writing, The Seventeenth Century, Actes des Congrès de la Société Française Shakespeare, Outskirts, and M/C Journal. She has also contributed a co-authored chapter in The Routledge Companion to Disability and the Media (2020) with Professor Katie Ellis, based on research completed as part of a Discovery Early Career Research Project for Curtin University. Dr Merchant has previously taught at Fort Hays State University, at their Shenyang campus in Liaoning Province, China. She is also a professional actress who has performed in cross-cultural collaborations in Southeast Asia in partnership with the University of Malaya and the Temple of Fine Arts, Malaysia.

Simon Order

Simon Order, PhD (Murdoch University, Western Australia) is currently an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Murdoch University who specialises in two connected fields: First, radio studies, which includes radio production, community media, Australian community radio and radio public policy. Second, music technology studies, which includes user-interface usability, student creativity in sound production studies, music technology in teaching and learning. More recently, his research has become more diverse with work focusing on post-apocalyptic television studies and universal design for online learning events and social mobility in Australia. His professional background includes audio production roles in the British television and music industry, radio station managing, and professional photography. Dr Order continues his professional practice as a composer and producer of electronic music under the artist's name Liminal Drifter. As former Academic Director of Media and Mass Communications for Murdoch University in Dubai, he developed the United Arab Emirates' premier tertiary media education centre. Outside of work, his interests include long distance running, endurance road cycling, science fiction film & television, vampires, and music composition.