Dr. Rhonda Garelick
Director, Interdisciplinary Arts Symposium
Rhonda Garelick is a scholar and critic of performance, literature, fashion, and cultural politics. She is the author of Rising Star (Princeton University Press, 1998, winner of the Kayden Award for outstanding manuscript in the Humanities) and Electric Salome: Loie Fuller's Performance of Modernism (Princeton University Press, 2007). She is currently at work on a book about modern fashion, mass culture, and interwar European politics, entitled Antigone in Vogue: Coco Chanel and the Myths of Fashion (under contract to Random House). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, the International Herald Tribune, and the Sydney Morning Herald, as well as in numerous scholarly journals, critical anthologies, and museum catalogues in both the United States and Europe. In 2006, she received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. Professor Garelick has taught at Yale University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Columbia University, and Connecticut College. She received her Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. in French and Comparative Literature from Yale University, and did extensive graduate work in Paris at both the University of Paris/VII and the Ecole Normale Superieure. Professor Garelick holds a joint appointment at UNL in the English department and at the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts.
Petra Wahlqvist
Associate Director, Interdisciplinary Arts Symposium
Petra Wahlqvist has a background in performing arts, arts education and project development. She holds an Honors B.A. with Highest Distinction in Theatre & Film from the University of Kansas, and post-graduate diplomas from Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq and London Center for Theatre Studies. Before moving to Lincoln, Nebraska, Petra co-founded the Voluntary Services at University College London Union where she worked for six years, developing award-winning student volunteer projects primarily in the arts, as well as overseeing the accreditation program, one-off services, and a multiple of skills pools. She worked as a Performing Arts Specialist and Mentor for three years with Artis, a performing arts education company in London. Petra shares her time between the Interdisciplinary Arts Symposium and her role as Director of Community Engagement and Learning at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
Kyren Conley
Program Assistant, Interdisciplinary Arts Symposium
Kyren Conley is a fifth-year senior in the College of Fine and Performing Arts, majoring in studio art. Her current emphasis is painting; she also has a strong interest in the public arts. Kyren recently organized the exhibition "Sights Unseen", to benefit the Friendship Home, Lincoln's shelter for victims of domestic violence. The exhibit represented the culmination of Kyren's work in community arts with associate professor Sandra Williams. Upon graduation, Kyren plans to pursue a teaching certificate and Masters of Art Education.
