Congratulations to Haddy Kreie, a first year doctoral student in Theater Studies, who has been awarded the 2013 New Scholar's Prize from the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR).
IFTR New Scholar's Prize is awarded to the top three essays submitted based on originality, coherence, and rigor. The award includes conference entry, travel to Barcelona, and accommodations for the duration of the conference, as well as consideration for publication in Theatre Research International.
Haddy's winning essay was titled "Jean Luc Raharimanana's The Prophet and the President: Subversive images of Women and Death in the Theatre of Madagascar," a revision of a chapter from her master's thesis.
Drawing on cultural interrogation of rituals surrounding ancestor worship the essay performs an allegorical analysis of Jean Luc Raharimanana’s The Prophet and the President, a play from Madagascar that confronts the hybrid religions and governments of the post/colonial moment. She explores processes of hybrid destruction as necessary for subverting colonial and indigenous structures of power that have historically relegated women to positions characterized by subservience, division, and unworthiness, carving out a new, reconstructive position for women in forging an independent national subjectivity.
Haddy became acquainted with the work of Jean Luc Raharimanana as a result of her two-and-a-half year service in the Peace Corps in Madagascar. She received her Master's degree from Florida State University in 2012 before arriving at UCSB to pursue her doctorate.