In 2011, serving in my role as vice chair of Imagining America's National Advisory Board (NAB). I conducted a series of interviews with the 18 NAB members in order to document the many pathways that brought each of them to our table. Their stories were rich—recounting unconventional academic and professional pathways. In particular, Randy Martin and the circuitous route he choreographed to arrive at his eventual academic post as Associate Dean of Faculty and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Tisch School of Arts, NYU was compelling. I have drawn upon our phone conversation from February 2011, as well as his vast corpus of writings and performances, in order to navigate through the archive of his geo-poetic "flight patterns" as artist, activist, scholar, teacher, mentor, performer, and our dear colleague and friend.

Scroll over each number on the image to "follow" Randy through biographical information drawn from my interview with him, as well as his written and spoken words.

 

[1] 1957 Los Angeles

born October 5, 1957, to architect father and artist mother

attends public school; high school cancer research internship at Cedar Sinai Hospital

"Disenchantment would lead me down a circuitous path." (Yasuda 2011)

 

[2] 1975 San Diego

enrolls as premed at University of California, San Diego

"This cured me of my interest in medicine. . . ." (Yasuda 2011)

 

[3] 1978 Berkeley

transfers to UC Berkeley as undergraduate sociology major

moves to San Francisco; attends classes by day; labor organizer in paint and garment factories by night

"I was looking for revolution in the factory." (Yasuda 2011)

 

[4] 1979 Madison

pursues graduate studies in sociology, University of Wisconsin

participates in Teaching Assistants Association (T.A.A.) strike; accused of fomenting

a cheating scandal, unable to secure funding; leaves Wisconsin

begins masters thesis, Comparative Study of Worker Resistance, a response to his work on shop floor of a small-scale garment factory in a large-scale corporation

". . . my interest was in ground level politics—American sociology as public practice, before it became about number crunching." (Yasuda 2011)

 

[5] 1980 New York

studies with dancer Alwin Nikolais while working on his PhD in Sociology at the City University of New York, researches the creation of a dance

"I took up dance with no previous experience; dance from inception to rehearsal; from verbal choreography to embodied dancer." (Yasuda 2011)

 

[6] 1982 Sicily, Italy

studies clowning, acting, jazz, flute, saxophone, political street theater; performs on an antinuclear missile base with partner, Ginger Gillespie

"Imagining that I would become a political theater practitioner . . . we would watch Americans deliver materials by day . . . to be stolen by the mafia at night. . . ." (Yasuda 2011)

 

[7] 1984 Brooklyn

completes dissertation, "Seeds of Desire—The Common Ground of Performance and Politics"

continues as adjunct at Queens College, CUNY

conceptualizes degree program in cultural studies (accepted at NYU 11 years later)

"My question, that of desire[,] is how can the body act, how can we have physical social experience in its own right." (Martin 1984, 10)

 

[8] 1985–1991 Nicaragua and Cuba

makes eight trips to study political formation and socialist theater.

"The impact of external forces and internal policies are evident in cultural expressions." (Martin 1994, xi)

 

[9] 1990 New York City

accepts tenured faculty appointment at Pratt Institute of Art.

"Subsequently, the jobs I obtained followed no clear pattern of ascent or occupational hierarchy." (Martin 1998a, viii)

publishes Performance as Political Act: The Embodied Self

". . . to give the reader a sense of the problem that will not go away and to indicate what gains might follow from the persistence of the body. . . ." (Martin 1990, xi)

 

[10] 1993 Irvine, CA

develops his research for Critical Moves while in residence at University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), in residence with Susan Foster, Mark Franko, Heidi Gilpin, Lena Hammergren, Sally Ness, Peggy Phelan, Nancy Ruyter, Marta Savigliano, Linda Tomko, and Jennifer Brody

"This disjuncture between political ideas and social mobilization, or agency and history, has contributed to a certain sense of stasis on the Left." (Martin 1994, x)

 

[11] 1994 Memphis

appointed as a tenured faculty at Rhodes Presbyterian College

"I was the only full-time faculty at an institution where 40% of the faculty were ordained . . . I was so far left, hiding what I did politically and intellectually. I had to reinvent myself and perform as a generalist." (Yasuda, 2011)

publishes Socialist Ensembles: Theater and State in Cuba and Nicaragua

"My premise is that theater is a particularly elastic expression of aesthetic and organizational form that can prefigure broader social developments." (Martin 1998b, 1)

 

[12] 1998 Durham

publishes Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics

"Critical Moves. Steps we must take. Movement that informs critical consciousness." (Martin 1998b, 1)

 

[13] 1999 New York

employed as adjunct at Bard College and SUNY Purchase

appointed as professor and chair of Social Sciences at Pratt Institute of Art

"Students here were fantastic—a range of soulful minds with interests across the fine and applied arts, architecture and fashion." (Yasuda, 2011)

 

[14] 2000 New York

appointed Associate Professor of Art, Society, and Public Policy and Associate Dean of Faculty and Interdisciplinary Programs at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

"From these commanding heights, I have learned a great deal about the organizational machinations of the institution and have seen how quickly the tables can turn." (Martin 1998b, 1)

 

[15] 2002 Minneapolis

publishes On Your Marx: Relinking Socialism and the Left

"In a simple way, capital's problems augur Marx's perpetual return." (Martin 2002a, xix)

 

[16] 2002 Philadelphia

publishes Financialization of Daily Life: Labor in Crisis

"Like every prior incarnation of the good life, this one rests as much upon exclusion as inclusion." (Martin 2002b, 6)

 

[17] 2007 Durham

publishes An Empire of Indifference: American War and the Financial Logic of Risk Management

"In the language of homeland security, economic normalcy has become seamless with political emergency." (Martin 2007, 17)

 

[18] 2011–2015 Syracuse

serves on Imagining America National Advisory Board

 

[19] 2011 Philadelphia

publishes Under New Management: Universities, Administrative Labor and the Professional Turn

". . . the university stands as a bellwether of societal fissures and points to the discrepancies between what is promised and what is possible, between what counts as accomplishment and what points to failure." (Martin 2011, 2)

publishes Knowledge LTD: Toward the Social Logic of the Derivative

"Knowledge may be extended as a kind of credit, a promise of what is to come, but the unknown circulates as a kind of debt, a way in which we are implicated in the works and lives of one another." (Martin 2015, 4)

 

[20] 2015 New York

awarded the American Sociological Association's Marxist Sociology Lifetime Achievement Award

died January 25, 2015

 

Steps We Must Take
A Poetic Citation

Kim Yasuda with Randy Martin

mid-motion, half-gesture
your migration
stage-left, left of center

to exit holds power—the how
of resistance—a walkout
the story of now
you left to us

contact, improvisation
weight, motion
movement, momentum
Steps we must take

body, assembly
precarity, choreography
bits, coins, scatter
a flight pattern?
a circuitous map
to keep that collective
collecting something,
making use,
laboring together
co-laboring.

your ladder
leaning
near lateral
over; around
the hole left
from one less of us
to pull from center
fly low, gather forces
to draw the margins
shift the ensemble. (Martin and Yasuda 2016)

 

[21] 2016 Milwaukee

 

Work Cited