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ASTR/TLA 2007 CONFERENCE Hyatt Regency , Phoenix • November 15-18, 2007 INTERVENING "AMERICA" |
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The Hyatt Regency Phoenix is the ASTR conference hotel. The ASTR block of rooms begins on Thursday, November 15, 2007, at the rate of $129/Single/Double/Triple/Quad occupancy + 12.07% tax. Although the room block cut-off date is October 26, 2007, it is recommended that you book a sleeping room early. After October 26, reservation requests will be based on availability at the Hotel’s prevailing rates. These guest room rates are available three days past the contracted dates for those attendees needing extra nights. Contact reservations at (602) 252-1234; 800-233-1234 or click here for online registration. For those attendees wanting to arrive on Wed., November 14, ASTR has arranged a small room block with the Holiday Inn Express Hotel, located at 620 North Sixth St., three blocks from the Hyatt Hotel. The reservations number is: 1-800-Holiday (1-800-465-4329). The code to use is S.T.R. The room rate is $129 S/D/T/Q. There are only 40 rooms reserved for Wed., and 20 each for Thurs., Fri. and Sat., so make your reservations as soon as possible.
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The 2007 conference follows the American Society for Theatre Research's self-reflexive fiftieth anniversary and will be hosted in Phoenix, a city located on the geopolitical border between two American nation-states. It thus seems appropriate for ASTR to continue examining the first term in its organizational name. "America" geographically denotes the Western hemisphere or any country therein, and the word has retained its multiple evocative connotations; yet, as Mexican performance artist Jesusa Rodríguez reminds us, "America" is also an interventionist term, imposed, invented, and so all-encompassing that it runs the risk of empty signification. Does "America" predate Vespucci? For our 2007 conference, we have programmed 15 seminars, 6 research groups, 2 reading groups, and 2 working groups. As you read through the various calls for proposals, please bear in mind the following:
The Program Committee looks forward to seeing everyone in Phoenix. --Jean Graham-Jones, program chair Seminar Calls for Papers: Seminar 1: Ethics in Translation Co-conveners: The practice and study of translation provides a uniquely intimate view of texts. The experience of the translator is typically undervalued in the marketplace. However, as the world becomes increasingly globalized, the importance of the translator grows. Now the translator has the power to both facilitate global identity and to preserve national identities. This is especially true for drama, where a script is translated multiple times, by director, by actors, by designers, et al. on the road to performance. The current trend in the translation of drama is to "transadapt," using a literal translation or comparing a variety of translations already in the target language to graft a new version of the source text. Transadaptation may often distort familiar works, possible even whole cultures, yet it has been employed as a useful tool for marginalized groups to invent new modes of communication. In a quickly globalizing world, how does the translator propagate or alleviate anxieties surrounding the homogenization of culture? In what way does the translator influence the interpretation of dramatic literature? What is the translator's role in the relationship between a source language and a target audience? The goal of this seminar is to provide a forum for translators and scholars in the field of drama and performance studies as well as related fields such as linguistics and comparative literature to discuss these and other current issues in translation studies. Seminar organizers welcome a range of contributions from a variety of perspectives focusing on case studies and/or issues of translation, adaptation, and cultural transmission of dramatic texts and performances, or related topics. Seminar participants may wish to approach such aesthetic, theoretical, and ethical questions with consideration of Venuti's critique of the translator's invisibility, Benjamin's explication of the task of the translator, Spivak's articulation of the politics of translation in feminist and post-colonial contexts, or through reference to other scholarly approaches and critical frameworks. Relevant topics could include:
Seminar format: Please submit an abstract of 250-500 words by 31 May 2007 by e-mail to: Please include in your abstract your institutional affiliation, if any, and contact information. If your proposal is accepted, the complete paper will be due by October 1, 2007 for circulation to all seminar participants. ~~~ Seminar 2: (How) Does activist performance work? Co-conveners: Recent scholarship on politically committed performance has focused on the role affect plays in activist productions. Jill Dolan, for instance, offers a useful way to describe how performance can create spaces of commonality and activist utopia. Benjamin Shepard describes how twenty-first-century leftist groups consciously incorporate elements of joy and humor, deploying a tactical playfulness at events like anti-globalization demonstrations, fair-trade street fairs, or peace rallies. These scholars insist that shared emotions serve as vital components of any effort to change the world. Yet, linked as they may be, affectivity and efficacy should not to be confused. Miranda Joseph points out how adept commercial and government institutions can be at cloaking their exploitative operations in the rhetoric of community. Slavoj Žižek regularly castigates the left for its celebratory expressions of individual and communal identity while relinquishing the long-range coalitional projects necessary to significantly alter material conditions. To these and other critics, the production of transitory political affect—sympathy for the oppressed, outrage at exploitation, a feeling of "doing something"—can replace critical considerations of what exactly should be done and how it can be accomplished. Unlike disciplines such as political science or sociology, theatre lacks a vocabulary to evaluate or discuss how and to what extent a political performance actually contributes to material changes in the larger status quo. Indeed, we seem to accept a disturbing degree of mysticism—blind faith, really—about how a performance that expresses and/or inspires intense emotions about a social issue might translate into actual changes in economic conditions or international policy. Without disregarding the power of emotion in performance, then, we feel it necessary for scholars and practitioners of activist theatre to begin posing and addressing questions that probe the link between the feeling and the substance of social justice. We invite proposals that explore issues related to this line of questioning. Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):
Applicants should send proposals of 500 words or less (in Word attachments, with affiliation and full contact information) to Sonja Kuftinec (skuftinec@aol.com) AND Tamara Underiner (tamara.underiner@asu.edu) by midnight CST, 31 May 2007. Sonja Arsham Kuftinec Tamara L. Underiner ~~~ Seminar 3: Performing Race, Performing "America" Co-conveners: This seminar will investigate the extent to which performances of race and nation characterize U.S. drama, especially given the liminality indicated by the terms "nation," "race," and "performance." Many theorists suggest that communities, identities, and cultures are created through performance, yet deconstructionists (whose work has not been irrelevant to Performance Studies) have sought to limit the power of identity claims. This seminar will therefore ask what power the categories race and nation yield in studies of U.S. drama. These considerations are especially apt since the 21st century purports to be post-race and post-nation. (Note too that recent works such as Suzan-Lori Parks's In the Blood and David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face investigate lingering notions of race as a biological inheritance signaling national belonging—even as they present the constructedness of race and nation.) We invite participants to offer case studies from a range of historical periods as we consider how performance both contributes to and disallows the production of race and nation. We will address questions such as the following: Can race and nation be performed, and under what circumstances? What actions, gestures, or movements signify race, nation, and their intersection? How does language contribute to the performance of race and nation? What histories allow certain performances to be read as racial, as national? How do gender, sexuality, and class inform and delimit racial and national performances? While scholars acknowledge the limitations of simple identity categories, do flexible definitions of race and nation nevertheless serve a function in canon building? This seminar solicits contributions from scholars and artists whose work interrogates U.S. drama in terms of race and nation. We welcome work that engages the theme of the seminar through a broad range of topics, texts, and time periods. Seminar format: By 31 May 2007 please submit an abstract (max 250 words) and brief biography (150 words) via email to: Soyica Diggs (soyi01@aol.com) AND Koritha Mitchell (mitchell.717@osu.edu) ~~~ Seminar 4: a.k.a., Amerika: Theatre and the Kafkaesque American Cultural Landscape Convener: Back in 1971 when Karen Malpede Taylor published her study of a half a century of radical theatre in the United States, the title of her book, People's Theatre in Amerika, offered an idiosyncratic spelling of America with a "k." Taylor gives no explanation for this spelling in her title. Nor does she give an explanation for its frequent use in the chapter that she entitled "HUAC Produces Amerika." Yet her prominent but unexplained use of this spelling suggests that she presumed everyone would understand the referent and the provocation that it carried. Echoing the English translation of Kafka's novel Amerika (1946), which kept the German spelling of Amerika for its title, Taylor's own book title amounted to a short-hand depiction of American culture as a place of nightmarish Kafkaesque bureaucracies, of menacing sealed indictments (to which the accused have no access), of extreme social alienation, and of persecution of the weak. Taylor's characterization of America as "Amerika" thus positioned "people's theatre" as a site of opposition and resistance to socio-political forces that are perniciously elusive and difficult to combat because their victims have little if any genuine avenues of access to the forces that oppress them. In such a context, power structures that are elusive necessitate innovative and extreme forms of performance like those suggested in pieces like Kafka's "The Hunger Artist," "Report to an Academy," "The Metamorphosis," or the final unfinished chapter of Kafka's novel Amerika, which is entitled "The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma." Sadly, this need is as pertinent today as it was when the HUAC was in full swing. The point of this seminar, however, is not so much the connection between Kafka and theatre as it is the perception of America as "Amerika" that Taylor took for granted and that she presumed to be the socio-political context to which theatre must respond. In this Kafkaesque era of Abu Ghraibs, Guantanamo Bays, unindicted detainees, extraordinary renditions, wire tappings, and diminishing civil rights, such perceptions are not difficult to find in the presumptions governing political theatrical expression. But neither are they unique to our own present historical context. Indeed, for theatrical examples that are pertinent to this seminar, we can arguably reach further back in history than Taylor, who begins with 1920s. The seminar is open to studies of theatre and performance from pre-20th century to the 21st century. In this seminar I am looking for papers that study a wide international array of theatres and performances, which help us to understand an enduring perception of America as the quintessential example of a loosely defined notion of the Kafkaesque. This seminar is, in short, open to any study of theatre or performance where artistic practices are shaped by an identifiable perception of America as "Amerika," particularly where the use of innovative and extreme modes of performance serve as a strategy for identifying, circumventing and countering the elusive and inaccessible structures of Amerikan cultural and political authority and power. Please send 250-word electronic abstracts by 31 May 2007 to: James Harding (hardingj@umw.edu) ~~~ Seminar 5: Articulations of Contemporary Arabic Culture in Theatre and Performance Co-conveners: In a post 9/11 world the dichotomy of "East" and "West" merits deconstruction. The Arab world is continuously accused of lagging behind the West, lacking democracy, needing reform, and breeding terror. At the same time, however, U.S. presence and foreign policy in the Middle East are continuously rejected by Arab nations, whether perceived as "adversarial" and "friendly" by the U.S. Throughout the world, this dichotomy—and its challenges—are played out in theatre and performance. To what extent do these performances address underlying binaries (local / global, modernity / heritage, Hadatha / Asalah, secularism / fundamentalism)? Do these additional divisions clarify or further mystify the situation? We are in a historical moment where tensions are especially high in most countries in the Middle East. To what extent do these clashes inform or transform our own analysis of theatre and performance? This seminar investigates critical issues of great relevance to the study of contemporary performance in the Arab world. Through this process, the seminar aims to theorize this emerging field of study in order to reflect a range of performances addressing the perception of "East" and "West" and how it is being articulated by artists. This panel further explores the tensions among Middle Easterners and how they perceive themselves as Arabs as Muslims and as citizens of the world. We welcome proposals for papers on a range of topics that would explore tensions, definitions, and readings of performances where the political situation emerges more than a backdrop. Questions seminar participants might address include, but are not restricted to, the following:
Seminar format: Please email proposals by 31 May 2007 to: Hala Nassar (hala.nassar@yale.edu) ~~~ Seminar 6: Neoliberalism and Performance in the Global Market Co-conveners: The goal of this seminar is to present research that theorizes and explores the forces of neoliberalism in the performing arts, with preferred emphasis on work in the theatre. Critics of neoliberalism point out that market rationalizations saturate political imaginations of the social, yielding individualistic entrepreneurialism as a model of homo oeconomicus that rearticulates configurations of citizenship and the state alike. We ask how strategic uses and deployments of theatre and the performing arts can be delineated as part of these broader trends and practices in neoliberal governmentalities. For example, how do the shifting conceptualizations of culture, commodity, and rights reconfigure the performing arts among other arenas of social production? Which circuits of production do theatre artists and critics need to address? Which modalities of political economy shift discussions of identity and nation in relationship to performance? Which negotiations of the transnational, intercultural, national and local classify artistic production, and to what ends? We are interested in work from a multiplicity of geopolitical regions / sites that:
Papers that engage the conference theme are especially appreciated. ~~~ Seminar 7: Performance in the Borderlands Co-conveners: The aim of this seminar is to reanimate the concept of the "border" within contemporary (twenty-first century) theatre and performance studies. Popularized by Gloria Anzaldúa, a self-described "chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache poet, writer, and cultural theorist," in the mid-1980s the "border" drew attention to the political tensions relating to the U.S.-Mexico border and (as a metaphor) depicted / characterized the unstable, indeterminate nature of racial, national, and gender identities. Anzaldúa's spotlighting of the border both as a real space and as a metaphor influenced the feminist writings of Angela Davis, Edward Soja's work on the "third space," and countless other cultural theories throughout the 1990s. In recent years, theories of the "border" have been supplanted / displaced by theories of "diaspora," which also allow for the existence of fluid identitarian categories without binding them to a specific place, region, or body. This seminar seeks to recenter the "border" by situating it (theoretically) within select diasporas and by redefining it in terms consistent with the politics of contemporary, global society. In contrast to diasporic theories which often emphasize movement over the particularities of place and location (or locatedness), this seminar wishes to underscore the impact and importance of the borders which are traversed within movement and, in select cases, those borders which prevent movement from occurring. It accounts for the role that geography and imagined boundaries play in the increased militarization of U.S. borders, the erection of fences along borders, the separatist beliefs of the Quebecois, the space between Haiti and the Dominican Republic and, more controversially, the space separating the U.S. (Guantánamo Bay) and Cuba). Although each contribution should engage with the border, either real or imagined, within the context of a specific performance culture within the Americas, they should also champion a revised and globally applicable understanding of both the border and the diaspora. In tandem with the conference theme to intervene "America," we seek 8-12 paper contributions to this seminar that will take on the theoretical/material currency of "borders" as a starting point for the examination of contemporary theatre and/or performance across the American hemisphere. Some areas of focus may include:
Applicants should submit 500-word proposals (via e-mail) by 31 May 2007 to:Ramon Rivera-Servera (r-rivera-servera@northwestern.edu) AND Harvey Young (harvey@northwestern.edu). Seminar Format: ~~~ Seminar 8: Escaping "America" Co-conveners: "The giant vortex of American cultural imperialism is ever widening, resulting in the homogenization of the world into one giant shopping mall / factory with the same chains / factories endlessly repeated. Is America becoming a placeless nation, and pulling the rest of the world along with it by the sheer magnitude of its gravitational force?" asks Leslie Hill in her introduction to the collection Performance and Place. This seminar seeks to investigate ways in which various performance practices and discourses embody, reinforce, and / or subvert cultural imperialism and to explore the overt hegemony inherent in the equation of 'America' with the richest and most powerful of all the countries of the Western hemisphere that fit under this umbrella term. The seminar encourages a variety of approaches from those focusing on performance practices within the US and / or other countries and cultures of the Americas to those outside that are in some way concerned with this issue. Proposals may consider some of the following questions:
Please send a 500-word abstract to the conveners no later than 31 May 2007. Seminar format: At the meeting, the organizers plan to have a round-table discussion of the major questions raised during the online dialogue, have more detailed exchange of the critical ideas with regards to the circulated papers, and finally open it for the guests. Erith Jaffe-Berg (Erithj@ucr.edu) Silvija Jestrovic (s.jestrovic@warwick.ac.uk) ~~~ Seminar 9: Vectors of the Radical: Material Exchanges and the Avant-Garde Convener: In light of recent theoretical, practical, and historiographical developments, research on the avant-garde is experiencing something of a paradigm shift, critically engaging the models that have dominated the field to now and opening new perspectives on the theory, history, and possibilities of avant-garde theatre, performance, and drama. Specifically, it has become clear through recent publications and the series of seminars on the avant-garde that have been staged at ASTR conferences over the last several years that scholars need to critically engage three issues: "Vectors of the Radical: Material Exchanges and the Avant-Garde" will bring together scholars interested in the movement of things—how objects, bodies, texts, and other material entities have impacted the history of avant-garde drama, theatre, and performance in, through, and beyond "America." We welcome papers that engage in rigorous, thorough, self-reflexive, and contextually situated analysis of how such objects exploit, subvert, disrupt, or affirm geographical, linguistic, and material boundaries. Though papers on the "usual suspects" are welcome (e.g., Dada, the Black Arts Movement, the Ballet Russes, Gertrude Stein, Aimé Césaire, and Charles Ludlam), we are especially interested in papers that examine artists, art, and critical-creative tendencies that have not received much attention to date; not leastly, those whose homes are found outside the U.S. By 31 May 2007, send 500-word abstract with full contact information and brief biography to Mike Sell, Department of English, Indiana University of Pennsylvania via e-mail to msell@iup.edu. Seminar format: ~~~ Seminar 10: Intervening at the Intersections of American Identity Convener: Over the past several decades, U.S. theatre has been marked by debates over the role of performance in the production of social identities. On the one hand, performance has figured centrally in the promotion of "identity politics," here understood as a wide range of social struggles that aim for the advancement of variously disenfranchised constituencies. Yet on the other hand, performance has also been cast as a means to trouble identity politics, particularly when such movements stand accused of ossifying identity positions and thereby narrowing the field of political action. These debates, moreover, impact not only performance activism, but performance scholarship as well; consider how a class in Women and Theatre, an anthology of Black Drama, or a conference on latina / latino playwrights mobilizes identity categories that are currently under contest in some circles. This seminar invites participants to contribute to these ongoing debates by intervening at the intersections of the identity positions themselves. Guiding questions for participants include, but are not limited to, the following: How might performance challenge claims to a singular "American" identity? How does performance suggest that identity categories based upon race, class, or gender mutually inflect one another? How does performance invoke other valences of identity—geographic, linguistic, or religious affiliations, for example—that likewise complicate stable conceptions of identity? Is there political efficacy in attending to the fluid intersections of identity positions? Or, conversely, do communities anchored by concrete identity positions still possess political traction? Finally, how might critical interventions into identity formation affect theatre scholarship, pedagogy, and production? Seminar format: Seminar applicants should submit a 250-word abstract of a paper topic; particular consideration will be given to papers that engage theoretical issues with concrete performance practices. The submission deadline is May 31, 2007; send abstracts via email to Alan Sikes at Hunter College-CUNY: asikes@hunter.cuny.edu. Please anticipate an email corroboration of the receipt of your abstract, and write again if you have not received a confirmation message within 48 hours of your submission. ~~~ Seminar 11: America the Foreign Convener: This seminar explores the representation of "America" and "Americans" in non-American drama, specifically the notion of America as foreign and Americans as foreigners. From Puccini, Illica, and Giacosa's Madama Butterfly, to Ama Ata Aidoo's Dilemma of a Ghost,to Tsao Yu's Bright Skies, Americans are characters in the drama of many nations, and America becomes a constructed and foreign place. This seminar invites papers which explore America the foreign. How is "America" constructed as foreign outside the hemisphere? How are "Americans" (the default name for people from the United States) represented in "foreign" drama? How is American foreignness demonstrated, and what does it imply about the United States? Are there "foreign" communities within America that create drama about "America"? What have been the historical transformations toward "America" in foreign drama since the inception of the nation? What do the depictions of Americans in the drama of Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the Americas tell us? How do these constructions shape and define the immigration experience? How is America perceived in the world, as based on the way it is depicted on the world stages? Is the "Ugly American" a universal reality, or does the national myth of America as heroic friend or noble adversary have any corresponding foreign image? What are the stereotypes of Americans as shaped in national theatres? Seminar format: Those interested in submitting for this seminar should send a 500-word abstract, including name and affiliation, and title of paper, to seminar leader Kevin Wetmore (kwetmore@lmu.edu) by 31 May 2007. ~~~ Seminar 12: Acts of Transfer in Theatre Knowledge Co-conveners: This seminar invites participants to submit abstracts for presentations that address practical strategies for transferring theatre knowledge from non-western communities to performance research centers by articulating new forms and structures for theatrical research based upon "brown" subjectivity. These forms of theatrical knowledge may be historical or contemporary. We hope that this type of intervention would be particularly productive at the conference site of Phoenix, Arizona, where there is a great diversity in cultural approaches to art-making and performance. This seminar proposal springs from our interest in re-situating subjectivity within American theatre research. We ask: is it possible to intervene in work about Theatre of the Americas in a way that unearths practical applications for what we're learning, so that seminar participants can share strategies for acts of transfer that reach other people of color, young people, and practitioners of all backgrounds? Performances by people of color are frequently the subject of theatrical investigations. However, as subaltern populations, these voices may be muted and / or redirected into post-colonial discourse that situates knowledge within colonizer cultures. Part of our project emerges from the desire to bring subjugated voices into discussions about theatre practice and to continue partnering with them in the loop of knowledge production. This seminar acknowledges the sometimes unidirectional flow of scholarly analysis; and the sometimes unreciprocated use of hidden histories and knowledges by academia. It aims to reach out to a community which includes, but also extends beyond academic practitioners. We ask for participants to provide examples of theatre practices where people of color, as subjects, provide forms and structures for theatre analysis. We want to emphasize physical embodiment as well as performance text because when theatre is viewed as a text-based practice, native languages and non-verbal communication codes may be silenced. Examples might include corridos, hip hop theatre, storytelling, dance theatre, protest activism, etc. We invite presenters to demonstrate concrete or embodied ways of communicating these practical strategies for transferring knowledge. We would welcome abstracts for participation in the following format:
For the conference in November, the seminar organizers will group the participants according to the kinds of methodologies they are exploring in their practice. We will then share abstracts between the group members. In September and October we will pose questions to the groups and ask participants to exchange ideas via email. Finally, we will ask them to collectively write a 500-word manifesto by November 1st about a theatre research methodology that might be derived from their combined practices. These manifestos will be shared at the ASTR conference. Please submit abstracts by 31 May 2007 to: Anita Gonzalez (gonzalea@newpaltz.edu) AND Julie Little Thunder (jalit33549@aol.com). ~~~ Seminar 13: Public Space, Politics, and the Performance of National Identities Co-conveners: At critical points in the life of a nation, people use public space as a forum for interrogating, celebrating, or discarding particular constructions of the nation, the citizen, and national history. The site, with its distinguishing characteristics, contributes to the performance of national identities in protests, parades, and memorials as individuals seek legitimation for particular definitions of the nation, the citizen, and the national history and as they seek entry into the discourse on the vision of a national or local future. From the colonial period to today, the idea of "America" has been deployed and redeployed through demonstrations, spectacles, and memorials in the U.S. and abroad. These sometimes spontaneous, sometimes scripted interventions form part of a global dialogue about the nature of America and what America represents. The public space chosen as the site for many of these interventions often speaks as loudly as the spectacle itself. This seminar seeks papers that analyze the use of public space to intervene in the idea of "America" through die-ins, love-ins, effigy burnings, peace rallies, general strikes, and vigils, as well as national parades, flash mobs, outdoor spectacles, street theatre, and living history sites. We are interested in papers that interrogate the dialogue between spectacle and space in its construction of identities and that examine the use and abuse of American stereotypes, attitudes, and actions both nationally and internationally. Papers should examine one or more of the following questions:
Seminar format: Please submit an abstract (maximum 500 words) and contact information as an email attachment (MS Word.doc format) by 31 May 2007 to: Susan C. Haedicke (shaedicke@msn.com) AND E.J. Westlake (jewestla@umich.edu). ~~~ Seminar 14: Made in "America": the politics of youth, the state, and the child body Convener: Herbert Hoover's quote referring to children as "our most valuable natural resource" encapsulates the common notion that children are a crucial state resource. This notion underlies such disparate policies as No Child Left Behind, forced enrollment in residential "Indian Schools" and the "community as school" movement championed by UNESCO and Ecuadorian educational specialist, Rosa-María Torres. This ideological stance also makes childhood a fertile ground for exploring the performance of state building, fear mongering, and the disconnect(s) between class, linguistic groups, and cultural belief systems. Building on a working group to be convened during the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics' June 2007 meeting in Argentina, this seminar is particularly interested in exploring the collision of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, and gender as articulated on and through child bodies in different eras, geographies, and imaginaries in the Americas. Here, we understand the body as a site of negotiation, discipline, and a means of expression and meaning. In particular, how do differing performances of "state" and/or "America" intersect with ideological structures of "childhood" that include childhood as a space of memory, childhood as a space of fear, childhood as a space of discipline, childhood as a space of commodification, and childhood as a site for imperial dominance? How do conceptions of "youth culture" traverse hemispheric geographies through mediatized and live forms, and how do these conceptions operate on the bodies and lived experiences of children and youth? How are differences in the articulation of childhood and its derived discourses (childhood rights; sexual consent determinations; citizenship rights, criminal definitions, and such performance genres as music and theatre and media for young people) addressed across localities, regions, and nations? This seminar seeks papers and projects that actively address these questions through considered examinations of expressive culture such as theatre, music, dance, mediatized transmissions of identity structures, "edutainment" designed to inculcate youth directly, and other forms of public and private performance. In all cases, the seminar encourages proposals that address hemispheric historical forces as well as local situations. Seminar format:
Send a 500-word abstracts by 31 May 2007 to: Stephani Etheridge Woodson (swoodson@asu.edu) ~~~ Seminar 15: American Allegories Convener: This seminar seeks papers that analyze how theatre and / or performance employ allegory to represent national or transnational trauma. Papers may be rooted in any historical period, so long as the performance discussed falls into the trope of allegory, defined as the use of coded language to create a chain of metaphors that appear to tell one story while simultaneously referring to one or more, less easily discernable, additional narratives. Some examples of well-known American dramatic allegories include: Susanna Haswell Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, 1794 (the injustice of slavery in the colonial era); Tony Kushner, Angels in America, 1993 (the apocalyptic consequences of AIDS in the United States); Griselda Gambaro, Antígona furiosa, 1986 (the defiance of dictatorship in South America); and Marty Chan, Forbidden Phoenix, 2003 (the betrayal of the immigrant dream in Canada). Papers, however, need not be limited to analysis of American plays. Analyses of any aspect of allegorical theatre / performance on the American continent or, alternatively, of any performances elsewhere in the world that allegorically represent any American nation would be equally welcome. Theoretical questions we might consider include: How useful, or inadequate, are the commonly used terms "political allegory," "national allegory," "historical allegory," and "global allegory?" Has allegory's subversive potential been exhausted? If so, what accounts for its continued appeal? Is there such a thing as postmodern or postnational allegory? Allegory's traditional didacticism, coded language, and archetypal characters are often associated with children's theatre, parables, and dogmatic political drama. Yet can allegory also offer a complex aesthetic experience? Along these lines, we might consider how allegory intersects with other aesthetic / political strategies such as parody and testimony. Another intersection to consider might be the role of allegory in constructing "imagined communities." Please submit a 500-word abstract by 31 May 2007 to Ana Elena Puga at Northwestern University (apuga@northwestern.edu). Selected participants will then be expected to submit a 5-7 page paper, due October 1st. We will read each other's papers before the conference and use the conference time for discussion.
Research, Reading, and Working Groups: Research Group 1: "Diasporic Imagination" Co-conveners:Heather S. Nathans, University of Maryland (hnathans@umd.edu) Peter Reed, Florida State University (preed@fsu.edu) Adrienne Macki, Tufts University (adrienne_macki@yahoo.com) "Works-in-Progress: The Meanings of 'America' in the Diasporic Imagination" Following ASTR 2007's theme "Intervening 'America,'" the Diasporic Imagination Research Group (DIRG) invites proposals for essays that examine interventions of diasporic theatre and performance in the Americas. Over the past four centuries, diasporic populations have literally and imaginatively "built" the Americas. Their manual labor has created our urban landscapes and our industry, and their cultural work has enriched American cultures with performance and theatre. From colonial performances of early American identity, through the performative contributions of African Americans in the nineteenth century, to immigrant theatre in twentieth-century cities, diasporic populations continually labored—physically and culturally—to construct America and its meanings. In 2007, the DIRG examines the "works-in-progress" that constitute American-diasporic performance. We will explore the ways in which the exigencies of emigration and assimilation render fluid a range of racial, ethnic, local, and national boundaries. We will also explore the ways in which different diasporic communities have performed their commitment to the concept of "Americanness." Potential topics for papers include:
Goals and Methods: Procedures for submission: Please submit proposals via email no later than 31 May 2007 to ALL of the conveners: Heather S. Nathans (hnathans@umd.edu); Adrienne Macki (Adrienne_macki@yahoo.com); and Peter Reed (preed@fsu.edu). ~~~ Research Group 2: Cognitive Studies in Theatre and Performance Co-conveners: The research group in Cognitive Studies in Theatre and Performance solicits discussion and research proposals that focus on how the cognitive and neurosciences are being used to rethink the history, dramaturgy, and practice of theatre and performance. New developments in cognitive studies and cognitive neuroscience are providing new paradigms for understanding the art of the theatre in its myriad forms and areas of study. Cognitive and neuroscientists such as Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner, Antonio Damasio, V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee, and Gerald Edelman, along with philosophers and linguists such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, are developing speculative models of the cognitive process that can be and are being fruitfully applied by scholars to the arts and humanities. Potential research topics include:
Participants are asked to present a short formal statement about their research interests. Based on the discussions arising from the presentations, issues in the area will be developed, a steering committee organized, and plans for future meetings identified. Proposals should be sent to John Lutterbie (John.Lutterbie@sunysb.edu) AND Rhonda Blair (rblair@smu.edu) no later than 31 May 2007. Proposals should be no longer than 250 words and include contact information: phone numbers (home and office), e-mail address, postal address, and fax number. ~~~ Research Group 3: Feminist Historiography Co-conveners: "Feminist Historiography: What's 'American' got to do with it?" How do (and how have) American assumptions of any stripe influence(d) the practices of feminist theatre historians? How has American feminist scholarship staked serious claims to revised ways of seeing while still leaving (or possibly producing) blind spots of its own? What new methodologies or approaches might help illuminate those blind spots? American feminisms are many, but some inevitably emerge at any given moment as "more equal than others," especially with regard to publication. Are there feminist voices that have been silenced by American feminist scholarship? Recuperating previously ignored playwrights who did not fit either commercial or feminist paradigms in American theatre in their own time might serve as a way to crack open the blind spots within an always evolving and (we hope) responsive package of methodology loosely (and therefore capaciously) known as feminist. Likewise, bringing to bear the ideas of American feminists from the past whose métier was not theatre but whose ideas can help us rethink their theatre contemporaries would be appropriate. This research group invites proposals from scholars who self-identify as feminist and who may be troubled by—or seek to trouble—familiar American feminist "truisms" of the past quarter century regarding theatre research. Interested participants are asked to contribute one of the following:
A proposal of 250 words or less, outlining how your contribution will address the above call, must be received by 31 May 2007. Please send proposals to both facilitators via email: Wendy Arons, University of Notre Dame (warons@nd.edu) AND Dorothy Chansky, Texas Tech University (dorothy_chansky@yahoo.com). Participant contributions should be 5 double-spaced pages maximum, and must be received by 15 September 2007. ~~~ Research Group 4: Imaging Scenography and Design Theory as a Discipline Convener: Design and theatre architecture are key elements within theatre practice. The scenography research group has been set up as part of a broader, global discussion happening around topics of scenography and design. Current approaches to scenography come in the form of designer biography, surveys of contemporary trends in design, interviews with designers, and exhibitions of designers. Though there have been a rising number of articles in the current literature playing with how visual and cultural theory affects our understanding of the role of design within practical theatre making, the age of treatises by designers, such as those written by Appia and Craig, is gone. Seldom is there an attempt to reposition design in context of trends in thinking that attempt to theorize practical performance making in the web of the tools of practitioners. That is to say, the group is interested in how design functions within space, how actors inhabit that space, and how design generates potentials of meaning within a theatrical event. Last year's meeting brought up a range of ideas that point to the difficulties of discussing scenography in the context of contemporary theatre historiography. In the spirit of creating a sustained dialogue, we seek case studies that demonstrate methodologies for scenographic research. Possible topics include:
Participants will be divided into subgroups that bring together people working on similar subjects. The subgroups will exchange papers during September, and via online discussion they will collaborate on a presentation to the whole group that outlines the methodologies structuring their research. Responses to the presentation from other subgroups and invited respondents will be generated at the meeting. The group will strive to provide a means by which interdisciplinary models could come together to test the viability of theorizing or re-theorizing the discussion of space and design within the context of the performed theatrical event. We hope that these discussions will continue after the meeting with an ultimate aim of submitted essays for publication. As well, we will meet during the weekend to collaborate in the planning of the group's future work. Please submit proposals via email or post by 31 May 2007 to: Stephen Di Benedetto ~~~ Research Group 5: Shakespearean Performance Convener: Shakespearean Performance Research Group Initial Call for Participants The ASTR Shakespearean Performance Research Group seeks interested members for the Group's founding at the 2007 meeting in Phoenix. Scholars are invited to submit abstracts of papers or descriptions of other work they are currently doing in various areas of Shakespearean performance. Research Group members will be chosen based upon these abstracts / descriptions, and organized into subgroups of scholars whose work is most closely affiliated or likely to prove beneficial for mutual consideration. Research Group members will then be asked to distribute completed or in-progress papers or work in other media to the Research Group. Group communication will be enhanced both before and after the conference through the use of a member listserv and web site. Shortly after convening the Research Group's meeting in Phoenix, the subgroups mentioned above will gather in breakout sessions, so that members in small groups can provide in-depth feedback on one another's work. These conversations are intended not to resolve, but to begin or begin to deepen discussions between members. Following the breakout sessions, the Research Group as a whole will consider the larger disciplinary issues raised by the submitted papers and other materials, with the topics for that larger discussion proposed in advance of the meeting. Goals of this Research Group will include helping to facilitate the work its members are engaged in and using that work as a base for better understanding larger issues and directions of scholarship in our field. Members will be asked to bring to the table not only discoveries of information but of process, and not only the questions they have answered but those that remain to be resolved. The group will seek to continue beyond the Phoenix meeting and provide an ongoing home for the study of Shakespearean Performance within ASTR. Please submit an abstract of up to 250 words (or similar-length description, or brief representation in other media as appropriate), plus an academic biographical statement, including affiliation, of no more than 75 words, to Don Weingust (don.weingust@tufts.edu) by 31 May 2007. For abstracts or descriptions, either Microsoft Word or WordPerfect will be fine. Media more easily sent by conventional mail may be addressed to: Don Weingust, Department of Drama and Dance, Aidekman Arts Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155. ~~~ Research Group 6: Theatre for Young People: Theorizing Issues of Culture, Representation, and Aesthetics Co-conveners: This research group aims to advance critical inquiry in the field of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) through the exchange and discussion of brief position papers from scholars in and outside of the field of TYA. We will attempt to bridge the gap between theatre for young people and theatre for adults by discussing the field of TYA from from historiographical and theoretical perspectives that have not been applied to the field before, offering multiple, intersecting narratives on the slippery relationship between theatre, young people, and the shifting material circumstances (social, cultural, economic, ideological and political) under which this theatre is generated and perceived.
Participants will be asked to write short position papers to share with the group prior to the meeting. Email discussion will take place in the weeks leading up to the meeting, and the Research Group Coordinators will formulate discussion questions. Position papers may be developed into full papers, which could be presented at the Inaugural International Theatre for Young Audiences Research Forum at the 16th ASSITEJ World Congress in Adelaide, Australia and may be submitted to the 2008 issue of Youth Theatre Journal, edited by Manon van de Water. Arizona State has the largest Theatre for Youth Program in the U.S., and houses the Child Drama Archives in the special collections of ASU's Hayden Library. In addition to the Research Group Meeting at the ASTR conference, the Child Drama Archives will host the Research Group and offer the opportunity to visit and research this rare and unique archival collection. Please send 200-word proposals by 31 May 2007 to: Manon van de Water (mvandewa@wisc.edu) AND Roger Bedard (roger.bedard@asu.edu). ~~~ Reading Group 1: Unfinished Show Business Facilitator: Bruce Kirle's Unfinished Show Business: Broadway Musicals as Works-in-Process Bruce Kirle's provocative book, published in 2005 as a part of Southern Illinois University Press's "Theater in the Americas" series, represents a significant re-imagining of traditional musical theatre historiography, challenging the once-ubiquitous privileging of the "integrated" musical as an "authentic," closed, complete product. Kirle argues instead that "musicals, both integrated and non-integrated, are a particularly open theatrical genre in which text interacts with performance, reception, and historical context" (xx). The questioning of the concept of what is or is not "American" inherent in this year's conference theme of "Intervening 'America'" invites reconsiderations, like Kirle's, of our reception of, and historiographical methods for examining, that most American of theatrical forms, the musical. Although the author does not question the "Americanness," per se, of the genre, he does explore how it has reflected shifting attitudes toward American identity throughout its history. To join the reconsiderations in which this Reading Group will engage, please identify a "case study" – a specific show, performer, etc. – that either supports or challenges Kirle's arguments made throughout the book. Your one-page proposal should include a title, a summary of the case study, and the position you will take in relation to Kirle's argument(s), as well as contact information. If selected, you will be required to disseminate to the other participants, in advance of the seminar, an expanded, 3-5 page description of the case study. Submit the proposal, via email only, by 31 May 2007, to the group's convener: Judith Sebesta (jsebesta@email.arizona.edu) Professor Kirle will join the Reading Group as a respondent for what promises to be a lively debate. ~~~ Reading Group 2: Theatre and Film / Cinema and Performance Facilitator: Knopf, Robert, ed. Theater and Film: A Comparative Anthology In the December 2006 Theatre Journal issue centered upon "Film and Theatre," David Z. Saltz writes, "Theatre and film are kindred phenomena whose histories are intimately intertwined." For decades the contentious, yet at times symbiotic, relationship between theatre and cinema has fascinated both scholars and artists. As barriers between disciplines erode to allow for scholarly exploration, the flexible and porous border that separates theatre and film has emerged as an intriguing location for innovative research. By exploring the dynamics of theatre and cinema production, research, history, theory, and pedagogy, the scholar can develop approaches to analysis that move beyond the paradigm of trans-medium adaptation. With such research and analysis, we can ask: How do theatre and film inform one another? How can theoretical issues from one field be applied to the other? How do pedagogues approach the disciplines when both are presented in coursework? How are the mediums utilized in conjunction with, and in opposition to, one another? What is the contemporary state of creative work that integrates performance, theatre and film? Selected topics for discussion and dialogue include:
To facilitate a conversation between scholars interested in this area of research, a website will be constructed to provide a forum space, areas for blogs and posts, links, and performance and film clips. In addition, this format will allow us to create a virtual conversation both before and after our formal meeting at the ASTR conference. The website will also allow for the creation of a comprehensive and evolving bibliography that will assist in our research. Submissions: Contact Information: ~~~ Working Group 1: National Identity/National Culture Co-conveners: National Identity / National Culture Research Group
The format for this year's meeting will entail a seminar-style discussion of papers no longer than 15-pages in length, which will be followed by a more general discussion of current trends and scholarship, stemming from the methodologies and topics encountered in the papers shared during the session. The general submissions call for the 2007 ASTR conference foregrounds "America" as a national formulation that has been instrumentalized in political and theatrical "interventions" within and across national borders. The NI/NC Research Group seeks submissions that address intersections of theatre, nationalism, and cultural identity in terms of "intervention." Papers might address such issues as:
The NI/NC Research Group welcomes submissions relating to "America," in keeping with the emphasis of the conference, but also encourages projects located in other geographies. Individuals interested in joining the National Identity/National Culture Research Group should send a paper abstract (max. 500 words) including your name, affiliation, and e-mail address. Full-length papers will not be accepted. In addition, please include a brief statement documenting your work and interest/expertise in this topic. Send your proposals by 31 May 2007 via email to both co-conveners: ~~~ Working Group 2: Performance as Research Co-conveners: The Performance as Research Working Group aims to foster an ongoing dialogue about the interconnection of performance, research, creativity, and pedagogy, as well as to formulate and address the fundamental epistemological, ethical, methodological, disciplinary, and institutional challenges the artist, the scholar, and the artist-scholar face in this field, both in North America and beyond. Building on the enthusiasm and engagement demonstrated by participants in a 2006 ASTR seminar, we seek to create a venue for ongoing investigation of key issues related to performance-based research. The initial session of the newly formed working group will focus on methodological issues relating to performance based research, examining the ways that this emerging field of inquiry can productively encompass both the concerns of ethnographic or cultural studies approaches as well as research more directly engaged with the praxis of theatrical creation. By explicitly addressing this topic, we hope to move past a pervasive focus on institutional mechanisms of legitimation for performance based research, advancing dialogue on performance as research in theatrical contexts by engaging more thoroughly with the methodological, theoretical, and ethical complexity of practice-based approaches in performance and cultural studies. We seek contributions from scholars and practitioners interested in participating in lively and substantive exchange both prior to and during the ASTR conference meeting. Participants selected for the working group will be asked to distribute their contributions electronically to other group members in early October to allow time for reflection, engagement, and dialogue prior to the conference session. Rather than regurgitating synopses of individual essays, discussion during the conference meeting will highlight key debates resonating through the work of multiple contributors. ASTR members interested in participating in the Performance as Research Working Group are invited to submit abstracts (approximately 100 words) outlining a specific project that substantively addresses issues of methodology in performance based research. Please send submissions or requests for further information to: Kris Salata (ksalata@stanford.edu) AND Lisa Wolford Wylam (lwwylam@yorku.ca). Proposals should be sent no later than 31 May 2007.
All other inquiries regarding the program for ASTR Conference 2007 should be directed to: Jean Graham-Jones (jgraham-jones@gc.cuny.edu) |
Jean Graham-Jones, City University of New York, Chair |
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