American Folk, Prefigurative Politics, Aesthetics and Affect
My name is Liv Jacobs and I am from Berea, Kentucky. Broadly speaking, my research is about the concept of “the folk” as a nation-making technology, and in the context of region and identity formation in the global Americas. Specifically, my work engages with folklife as political within activist settings and as a mode of prefiguration.
I have an M.A. in Performance Studies from Washington University in St. Louis which greatly informs my methods. I look to the intersection of the body and culture, both as a site of inquiry and as a research methodology by employing ethnography as a mode of “coperformative witnessing”. My other interests include body-nonconformity, aesthetics and affect, the horror genre, and 19th century novels.”