By Rick Pulos
Rick Pulos (he/him/his) is a scholar-artist currently in his third year in the PhD in Communication at Texas A&M University. He holds a BA in Film Studies from Yale University, an MA in Media Arts from Long Island University, Brooklyn and an MA in Strategic Communication from Regent University. His research focuses on the community and culture of fandoms and the overall influence of popular culture in our everyday lives. His film and theatre creations are situated at the intersections of life, scholarship, and creativity. He is especially interested in the ways in which marginalized folks navigate and transform fan spaces and communities that have traditionally been white, male, and heteronormative. At the heart of all his work is the art of storytelling, whether through writing, filmmaking, or theatre. Rick is also interested in how people find and/or make community in places like senior centers, community theatres, arts studios, dance studios, and other publicly available spaces where people congregate to build relationships. His fierce love of pop culture is tempered by his research on (mis)representations/uses/misuses of gender, race, class, and sexuality in mainstream media and by major media companies. Rick is an interpretive scholar who often integrates ethnographic film and media making into his work.
From the artist:
Rick Pulos is many things and nothing at all. I fit here but don’t fit there. Belonging has been a lifelong negotiation of where I am and where I want to be. “The ABCs of Trying to Belong” is a musing on my many adventures through life that have challenged me and strengthened me. The performance portion is an excerpt from a longer solo multimedia theatre piece “Mixing Ingredients or How to Make an American by Checking Off Boxes.” Faced with the little boxes to check off on my college applications back in the early 1990s, I realized I sort of did not fit into the choices easily or perfectly. Little boxes! All of a sudden, my past and my future collided…staring at those boxes, I was bewildered. Boxes, boxes…boxes!