“Lessons in Drag” with LaWhore Vagistan

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Dr. Vagistan, your favorite South Asian drag auntie, brings the nightclub to the classroom (and vice versa) to explain how critical social theory matters in queer nightlife. Touching on themes that include globalization, feminist theory, and islamophobia, she stages the nightclub as a site of politics and pleasure. Part lecture, part lipsync, part audience participation, the show demonstrates how much drag teaches us, even requires us, to be in relation with the rest of the world.
 
LaWhore Vagistan is your favorite aunty’s favorite aunty. She has shared the stage with RuPaul’s Drag Race Winners Sasha Velour, Nymphia Wind, and Raja, and has performed at The Wilbur, La Mama, Austin International Drag Festival, Asia Society, Queens Museum, Links Hall, ART Oberon, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. Her films have screened at the New York Historical Society, Atlanta Experimental Film Festival, San Francisco 3rd Eye film festival, and the Hyderabad Queer Film Festival. You can also find her on YouTube delivering a TEDx Talk titled "How to be an Aunty.” Her brand new book, Lessons in Drag, is out now from Brandeis University Press.

Reviews

"LaWhore is transcendent. My students are still talking about her."
– Marta Figlerowicz, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Yale University. 
 
"In the depths of the early months of the COVID pandemic, 'Lessons in Drag' with LaWhore Vagistan was a balm for the soul!  Costume changes! Lip syncs! Mini-lectures! This performance is an urgent reminder of drag's capacities, a form both generous to its audiences (trust--you'll have fun) and electric in its political interventions."
– Andy Campbell, Associate Professor of Critical Studies, USC - Roski School of Art and Design

"'Lessons in Drag' is a tour de force. Combining humor, melodrama, erotics and kitsch, the show is a delightful celebration of sensuality and humanity. In her beauty, her brashness, and the way she owns the stage, LaWhore Vagistan offers a new model of what political embodiment can look like for the 21st century." 
– Ulka Anjaria, Professor of English and Director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities, Brandeis University
 
“'Lessons in Drag' offers lessons in politics, love, joy, and intimacy— expanding the notion of what drag can be in relation with the world, with each other, and with ourselves.  
– Claire Pamment, Associate Professor of World Theatre and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, William & Mary
 
"LaWhore Vagistan’s “Lessons in Drag” is spectacular entertainment that uses riotous humor, love, Queer politics and postcolonial anti-racist critique to teach us about the pleasures and struggles of the Queer South Asian diaspora and the global human experience more broadly. It sets a new bar for the possibilities of pedagogy in the 21st century."
– Cecilia Van Hollen, Teaching Professor, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University