Wednesday Blog Watch - The Show Goes On

The president of the The College of William and Mary, a public college in Virginia, has resigned this week amidst controversy.  The Chronicle of Higher Education reports the story in this article.  One piece of the controversy involves last year's removal of a cross from a public chapel so that non-Christians would feel welcome.  Another issue is that the president allowed an annual art performance show - "The Sex Workers' Art Show" - to visit campus.   The Sex Workers' Art Show, which will be performing at Harvard University this Saturday, is a spoken word performance show that is a collaboration of artists who have at one time worked as adult escorts, erotic writers, strippers or in some other capacity in the sex industry.  As reported in the Weekly Dig: 

The adult sex industry nets $12 billion—accruing more than professional baseball, football and hockey combined. [tour founder and director Annie] Oakley mentioned this figure during her introduction, after asking anyone who patronizes the adult sex industry to clap. Presented with hesitant applause, Oakley allowed it to be understated that most adult Americans (including most people in the audience) have utilized services provided by adult actors, erotic writers, adult models, escorts or professional dominants.

Read a reaction to the controversy and see a news video at The New York School of Burlesque blog.   A blog of a performer from last year's show can be found here. 

Semiotext(e) readers may recognize a familiar name among this year's lineup - Chris Kraus, founder of the Semiotext(e) Native Agents Series, author of several books including Torpor and Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness, and recent winner of the College Art Association's Frank Jewitt Mather Award for Art Criticism.   

The show visits the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA on Friday, February 15th, and continues on to Rhode Island School of Design, Wesleyan, and the University of Michigan next week.  Those who are interested and have missed the tour in the past (in 2006, for instance, when Semiotext(e) author Michelle Tea had been on the roster) should be sure to catch it this time around.  And get your tickets ahead of time: venues have been selling out.