Naida Zukic
Professor
Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts
EMAIL: nzukic@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: S-628F
Office Hours:
Phone: +1 (212) 220-8000;ext=7134
Dr. Naida Zukić is a Communication and Performance Studies scholar and Butoh artist. She teaches Media Studies, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Public Speaking classes. Professor Zukić’s research highlights human ways of knowing as products of interlocking aesthetic, cultural, and political contexts, and examines the ways in which claims to authority—based on the reification of social categories—might be critically analyzed and challenged. Dr. Zukić has complemented her written scholarship on manifestations of global violence by the production of short digital films and Butoh performance pieces.
Expertise
Ethics of Responsibility, Ideological Representations of Violence, Post-humanism, Digital Culture, Butoh Performance, Radicalism of Grief.
Degrees
- Ph.D. University of Minnesota, Rhetorical Criticism, 2005.
- M.A. Arizona State University, Critical Studies in Communication, 2001.
- B.A. Arizona State University, Communication Studies, 1999.
Courses Taught
- This course is designed to provide an understanding of intercultural principles and perspectives when communicating with people from diverse cultures. Consideration will be given to both verbal and nonverbal communication processes in the "American" culture, co-cultures, contact cultures, and popular culture. Through readings, lectures, response papers, and interviews, as well as through in-class discussion and exercises, this course will explore how culture shapes communication, how situations are framed through cultural lenses, and how histories, perceptions, values, contexts, aspects of stereotypes, and ethnocentrism all contribute to the complexity of intercultural communication. Prerequisite: SPE 100 or SPE 102
- The aim of this course is to develop effective skills in speech communication. The student examines how to generate topics and organized ideas, masters elements of audience psychology and practices techniques of speech presentation in a public forum. All elements of speech production and presentation are considered.
- This course is recommended for those whose native language is not English. It addresses fundamentals of speech communication, as does SPE 100, but provides special emphasis in vocabulary building, pronunciation, and enunciation. Classwork is implemented through the use of recordings, individual and group drills, interpersonal exercises, oral readings, and impromptu and prepared group discussions and speeches. Weekly speech tutoring is required. This course satisfies the equivalent for, and may be taken instead of, SPE 100. Credit is given for SPE 102 or SPE 100, but not for both classes.
- The focus of this course is to provide an understanding of the influence and impact on our lives and society by the mass media. The course examines the history, law, technology, economics and politics of the mass media through independent study, field trips, etc. Students are encouraged to be aware of techniques of influence used by the mass media to influence and determine social and political values. In addition, students learn to develop tools for critical analysis of and standards for discriminating consumption of the mass media.
Prerequisite: SPE 100 or permission of department - The purpose of this course is to raise students? awareness regarding the ways in which gender is created, maintained, and/or changed through cultural expectations and interaction. Students will gain theoretical insights and develop analytical skills to identify gendered expectations, and to learn how such expectations serve to limit behavior for people of all genders. The course will enhance understanding of how predominant social assumptions and communication norms can devalue and silence women and other non-dominant groups, and how students can become change agents to enhance our collective lives. Prerequisite:SPE 100
Research and Projects
- Tactical Bodies: The Choreography of Non-Dancing Subjects. The Congress on Research in Dance:: University of California Los Angeles.
- Lost in Language ||Writerly Violence|| Art of Resistance.
- BACKLASH/On Women’s Basic Rights & Freedoms ::An exhibition addressing the current political climate towards women:: SOHO20 Chelsea, New York, NY.
- Memory, Medium, Movement ::Butoh/body as a medium of interrogation directed at subjectivity, memory, power, and responsibility.
- Oneiroid Life: NewFilmmakers New York Film Festival, New York, NY.
- Against Rhetoric of Urgency (Butoh). San Francsico, CA.
- Regarding The Abject AesthetHic: Butoh jouissance of rage – a surrealist aesthetHic of abjection as a radical commitment to ethical self-instrumentalization.
- Get Smart, Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY.
Publications
- The Weight of Meaninglessness., Digital Icons.
- My Neighbour’s Face and Similar Vulgarities., Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies.
- Oneiroid Askesis., Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies.
- Zukic, Naida (2022): “Revolt of the Body in Stillness” Text and Performance Quarterly. 42.4. 1-25.
- Zukic, Naida (2017): “The Violence of Heteronormativity || Notes on Anohni’s Hopelessness.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. 4.2. 150- 161.
- Zukic Naida (2013): “Oneiroid Askesis.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. 9. 4.
- Zukic Naida, and Mirko M. Hall (2013). “The DJ as Electronic De/Territorializer,” DJ Culture in the Mix: Power, Technology, and Social Change in Electronic Dance Music, eds. Bernardo Attias, Anna Gavanas, and Hillegonda Rietveld.
- Zukic, Naida (2010): “The Weight of Meaninglessness.” Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, and Central European New Media. 4. 115-120.
- Zukic, Naida (2009): “My Neighbor’s Face and Similar Vulgarities.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. 5. 5. 1-12.
- Zukic, Naida (2008): “Webbing Sexual/Textual Agency in Autobiographical Narratives of Pleasure.” Text and Performance Quarterly, 28. 4. 396-415.
- Zukic, Naida (2008): “Sehakia’s Voices: Realigning the Zone of the Speakable in Cyberspace.” In Kristine Blair, Radhika Gajjala & Christine Tulley (Eds.), Webbing Cyberfeminist Practice: Communities, Pedagogies, and Social Action. Cresskill: Hampton Press.
- Zukic, Naida (2002): “Embodied Ambivalence: Reiterating and Transforming Phallocentrism in The Pillow Book.” Text and Performance Quarterly, 22. 3. 181-19.
Book Reviews:
Zukic, Naida (2015): Visions and Revisions: Performance, Memory, Trauma. Bryoni Trezise and Caroline Wake. Text and Performance Quarterly.
Zukic, Naida (2009): Latina/o Communication Studies: Theorizing Performance. Bernadette Marie Calafell. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 95. 1. pp. 108-112.
Zukic, Naida (2003): Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy. Paul Gottfried. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 6. 4. pp. 794-797. Winter 2003.
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- Anne Morrison Chapman Visiting Lecturer, Converse College. “Ethics of Responsibility and the Violence of the Self.”
- Honors Forum Lecture Series: Dr. Naida Zukic Lost in Language||Writerly Violence||Art of Resistance September 30th 2015, Phoenix Arizona.
- Faculty Publication Grant Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY Manhattan. Reading Butoh Body. Summer 2016/2017. (Funded $5000.00).
- Fellowship Leave Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY Manhattan. Stretched! Beyond Body: Choreographing Ethics of Seeing. Spring 2018.
Additional Information
Selected Convention Presentations:
“Performing Trouble in Chthulucene.”Performance Methods as Epistemic (or) Two or Three Things We Know For Sure about Performance Methods. National Communication Association Conference, National Harbor, MD November 16-19, 2023.
“Theorizing Abject Feminist Stillness in Butoh.” Feminist Community Formations Across Borders and Experience. National Women’s Studies Association Convention. Virtual Conference, September 17 – November 20 2021.
“Revolt of the Body in Stillness.” Galvanizing Dance Studies: Building Anti-Racist Praxis, Transformative Connections, and Movement(s) of Radical Care. Dance Studies Association Convention, Rutgers University – New Brunswick, NJ October 14-17, 2021.
“Violent Plays: Performing Ethics, Rights, and Freedoms.” National Communication Association Conference, Salt Lake City, UT November 7-11, 2018.
“Still. Willful.” National Communication Association Conference, Salt Lake City, UT November 7-11, 2018.
“Choreographing Discomfort of Seeing.” Transmissions and Traces: Rendering Dance. The 2017 CORD+SDHS Conference, Columbus, OH October 19-22, 2017.
“Performative Witnessing || Butoh Politik.” National Communication Association Conference, Philadelphia, PA November 10-13, 2016.
“Regarding Silence, Witnessing, and Human Rights Abuses.” First Interdisciplinary Inequality & Social Justice Conference Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York Friday, October 7 – Saturday, October 8, 2016.
“…And Stage to the Page: Theorizing From Embodied Aesthetic Practice.” National Communication Association Conference, Las Vegas, NV November 19-22, 2015.
“The Violence of Heteronormativity and the Presence of our Past(s).” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL November 19-23, 2014.
“A Process of (Non)Linear Inquiry: Adaptation, Collaboration, and Digital Media.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL November 19-23, 2014.
“Performing Convulsive Body Politik” Tactical Bodies: The Choreography of Non-Dancing Subjects: The Congress on Research in Dance.
University of California Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA April 19-21, 2013.
“Biological Warfare Games for Children.” Animated Shorts: Performances of DisUnity. National Communication Association Conference, Orlando, FL November 15-18, 2012.
“The DJ as Electronic De/Territorializer.” National Communication Association Conference, New Orleans, LA November 16-20, 2011.
“Memory, Medium, Movement.” National Communication Association Conference, New Orleans, LA November 16-20, 2011.
“Against Rhetorics of Urgency.” National Communication Association Conference, San Francisco, CA November 14-17, 2010.
“Performing Collaboration: Rhetoric of Sexual Performativity.” National Communication Association Conference, San Francisco, CA November 14-17, 2010.
“Deconstructing The Paradoxical Power in Traumatic Performative.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL November 12-15, 2009.
“From Subjects to Cyborgs: Performing Posthuman.Sexualities.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL November 12-15, 2009.
“A Retrospective Return to a Politics of Bodies in Abjection.” National Communication Association Conference, San Diego, CA, November 21-24, 2008.
“Theorizing Collective Representations in Cyberspace: Challenges and Opportunities for Intercultural Communication.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL, November 15-18, 2007.
“Working it – at the Film Festival! Regulating Global Productions of Queer Muslim Sexualities.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL, November 15-18, 2007.
“Theoretical Complications: A Critical Turn In Intercultural Communication.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL, November 15-18, 2007.
“Queer Sexualities: Dis/locating our ‘Chains of Signification.’” National Communication Association Conference, San Antonio, TX, November 16-19, 2006.
“Issues on Mentoring: Reaching Out to the Queer Students.” National Communication Association Conference, San Antonio, TX, November 16-19, 2006.
“Theorizing Voice in Cyberspace: Sehakia’s Webs of Desire.” Western States Communication Association Conference, Palm Springs, CA February, 18-21, 2006.
“Scandalous Bodies and the Abject Zone of Cybererotica: Terrorizing the Heterosexual Matrix.” National Communication Association Conference, Boston, MA, November 17- 20, 2005.
“Behind the Burqua: In Search of the Lost Discourse.” National Communication Association Conference, Chicago, IL, November 11-14, 2004.
“Can Afghan Women Speak?” Western States Communication Association Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, Feb. 14-18, 2003.
Invited Presentations:
“Feminist Analysis: Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.” Communication Studies Club Fall 2018 – Spring 2019 Workshop Series, BMCC, CUNY Manhattan.
“Edward Said: On Orientalism.” Communication Studies Club Fall 2017 – Spring 2018 Workshop Series, BMCC, CUNY Manhattan.
“Lost in Language|Writerly Violence|Art of Resistance.” Honors Forum Lecture Series, Phoenix, AZ September 2015.
“Project Abject [Aesthethics]” Get Smart, Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY August 2011.
“Ethics of Responsibility and the Violence of the Self.” Anne Morrison Chapman Lecture, Converse College, March 2011.
“To Seize Hold of a Subject Formation Memory.” Presentation delivered by invitation to the HerStory (Women’s) Month Event. BMCC, CUNY Manhattan, New York, NY March 2009.
“Queer Muslim Subject: An Oxymoron? Re/claiming Nonheteronormative Notions of Muslim Women’s Sexualities.” Presentation delivered by invitation to the GLBT History Month Series of the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL Oct. 2007.
“Unveiling Her Webs of Desire: Forging Agency in Muslim Lesbian Narratives of Survival.” Presentation delivered by invitation to the Women’s History Month Series of the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. March 8th 2007.
“Dialoguing Dissertations.” Women’s History Month Series of the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. March 22nd 2007. “Theorizing Islamic Modern Subject: Muslim Lesbian – An Oxymoron.” Presentation delivered by invitation to the Islamic Threat: History, Nature, and Discourse seminar in the School of Journalism at the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. April 5th 2007.
