This special issue explores patterns of modernization and the invention of "traditions" in Asian theatres since the 19th century.

CALL FOR PAPERS

 

Issue 32 (December 2025)
Guest Editors
Jen-Hao Hsu (Walter), Sir Anril Tiatco and Deniz Başar

 

Towards Inter-Asia Theatre Studies: Modernity, Historical Conditions and Changing Ways of Seeing

 

The emergence of secularized theatre in Western Europe's historical processes is part and parcel of the project of modernity. As capitalist modernity spread from Western Europe to the rest of the world, modern secularized theatre and its underlying ways of seeing also spread to different corners of the world. Simultaneously, Western modernity invented Asia as a geopolitical concept and as the “Oriental Other” to Europe. As a result, Western “Modern Theatre” was introduced to different Asian countries, where their respective indigenous performance traditions were reclassified as “pre-modern.” This modern/traditional lens has echoed across many Asian countries, albeit through diverse processes. In the Chinese-speaking areas, for example, xiqu was invented as a traditional form as opposed to xiandaixiqu, a spoken form modelled upon the West; in Japan with the introduction of shinpai and shingeki, No and Kabuki became traditional performing arts; in the Philippines, with the coming of the Americans, komedya, sarsuwela, and sinakulo became traditional theatre forms; whereas in some Western Asian examples like Turkey, older forms of performance such as Orta Oyunu, Meddah and Karagöz were almost completely abandoned until their rediscovery and reinvention in recent years. 

 

This reinvention process also involved political revolutions, the rise of modern nation-states, the formation of modern nationalistic subjects, and the advent of a capitalist market system and other social, economic, and political structural changes. After WWII, postcolonial nationalism rose in Asia and heralded numerous newly independent states. With the onset of the Cold War, the rivalry and tension between the socialist bloc and the capitalist camp led to divisions and hostility across Asia. These tensions persisted until the 1980s, when a new global capitalist framework began to ease geopolitical conflicts in the region, accelerating the process of globalization. 

 

Considering that the socio-political psyche of Western colonialism underscored these processes, the frontier subjects of these cultural policies were the intellectuals of emerging Asian nation-states, which - in many cases - learned about other Asian performance paradigms through the lens of Western orientalist historiography, if they ever did. Under these new historical conditions we have witnessed the emergence of intercultural performance as well as Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, artistic and intellectual efforts aimed at creating pathways for scholars to revisit the historical challenges posed by Asia’s encounter with Western modernity and further seek possibilities to empower localized cultural identities by transcending Western modernity. 

 

This special issue seeks to explore not only the shared patterns of modernization and the invention of tradition on stage in multiple Asian nation-states since the 19th century, but also to understand how various Asian theatre artists influenced one another during key historical moments-- without or with limited and controlled, mediation by Western cultures.

 

Furthermore, this special issue aims to facilitate inter-Asia theatre studies. By exploring each other’s dialectical relationships between traditional and modern theatres, we hope to ignite critical discussions and tackle important questions, including:

 

Ø  Will we find new perspectives to re-narrativize the historiography of one’s own modern theatre formation?

Ø  How are these new perspectives and discourses related to the changing geopolitical relationships and patterns of cultural exchanges in Asia?

Ø  How might the aesthetic divide between the traditional and the modern entail epistemic shift and political tensions within a specific historical condition?

Ø   Between tradition and modernity, how do different Asian modern and contemporary theatres face the conundrum between post-colonialism and postmodernism?

 

We will accept papers addressing the general questions mentioned above, but we also welcome papers that explore the following:    

1. Relationships between traditional and modern theatres in different Asian countries under specific historical conditions.
2. (Im)possibility of Asian Inter-Cultural theatrical practices with/without colonial mediation. 
3. The aesthetics and politics in Asian theatres’ modernization processes.
4. History, cultural memory and performances in Asian countries. 
5. The digital turn in Asian theatres.
6. Conceiving and forging the contemporary in Asian theatres. 
7. Cultural governance structures and changing theatrical landscapes in global/local dialectics in Asian countries. 

 

Timeline

Proposals of approximately 300 words, each of which includes a 50-word biography identifying all collaborating authors:30 December, 2024

 

Selection: 24 January, 2025

First drafts: 16 May, 2025
Final drafts: 29 September 2025
Publication: December 2025

 

Those interested should send the abstract to: sptiatco@up.edu.ph

About the Guest Editors

Jen-Hao Hsu (Walter) is an associate professor in Theatre Arts Department at National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He earned his PhD in Theatre Arts from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He has published academic articles on modern and contemporary Chinese theatre studies in journals in Australia, Taiwan and mainland China. His researches looks at the formations of modern and contemporary theatres/performances in the Chinese-speaking world, especially in relation to critical topics of modernity, sexuality and nationality. 

Sir Anril Tiatco is a professor of theatre and performance studies and the past-immediate chair of the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He earned his PhD in Theatre Studies from the National University of Singapore. He was a visiting scholar at the Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures at the University of Manchester. He is an associate editor of Humanities Diliman, a contributing editor of Theatre Research International, and one of the collective editors of Contemporary Theatre Review.    

Deniz Başar is a theatre researcher and playwright from Turkey. She received her PhD from Concordia University’s Humanities Department in 2021; she was a FRQSC post-doctoral fellow in Boğaziçi University between 2021-2023. Parts of her research on puppetry and political performativity have been published in anthologies and journals. She works on two edited volumes about performative politics on and off stage in Turkey with her colleagues Dr. Eylem Ejder and Dr. Pieter Verstraete.

 

 

 

Critical Stages/Scènes critiques is available online to the reader without financial, legal or technical barriers. Ιt is a biannual (June/December), peer-reviewed journal fully committed to the Open Access Initiative. It offers a platform for debate and exploration of a wide range of theatre and performance art manifestations from all over the world.

 

Critical Stages/Scènes critiques is indexed by SCOPUS, ProQuest, EBSCO, DOAJ, MIAR, ERIH Plus, DRJI, GOOGLE SCHOLAR, and listed in the ULRICH’s web Global Serials

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