The IFTR Historiography Working Group will be meeting during the IFTR conference in Hyderabad, India, 5-10 July 2015. The working group welcomes papers dealing with any possible period or topic in theatre history, but as the group is dedicated to theatre historiography, the author is asked to contemplate the historiographical implications of his or her research projects.

The general theme of the upcoming conference, Theatre and Democracy, has various critical implications for the study of theatre history. As noted in the description of the conference theme: “The practice of theatre, as it exists within and made possible by the matrix of socio-economic-political structures, often regulated by notions of national culture, cannot but engage with democracy, with issues of policy, resources, institutional and infrastructural spaces, along with the problems of authority, access, control, censorship, freedom, etc. In today’s context, it is imperative to open up these relations that facilitate and shape theatre practice to expose the political, aesthetic and social aspects of the politics of inclusion, exclusion and representation.” The theatre historian is continually faced with questions about the contextual conditions of theatre, including questions of authority, inclusion, exclusion, and control, as well as questions on the social and political implications of the practice of historical research. The Historiography Working Group welcomes, but does not confine itself, to papers addressing the theme of the conference. See the conference website,http://www.iftr2015hyd.in/, for a full elaboration of the topics.

The Historiography Working Group works by circulating papers to members in advance of the conference. Those who have circulated papers are invited to speak for not more than ten minutes about the context in which they have written their pieces, and about points where they would particularly welcome a response. (Participants take care to read all the papers carefully, so an oral summary of the paper is discouraged.) Submissions are normally linked to a research project that the author currently has in progress. The group spends about 20 minutes discussing each paper, and the emphasis of the discussion is upon historiographical method rather than the detail of the content. The aim of the discussion is always to be constructive. It is a way of working that has been found helpful by young scholars inexperienced in presentation, and by scholars whose first language is not English, but it has evolved because it suits the needs of those who are working on a larger project, which is often seen to be growing from year to year. We shall particularly welcome proposals from new scholars and from scholars outside Europe.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted by 31 January 2015 on the Cambridge Journals website:http://journals.cambridge.org/iftr, indicating that you are submitting to the Historiography Working Group. Please see the conference website for further instructions on submitting abstracts.

The Working Group conveners reserve the right to select proposals that best fit the historiographical theme of our meeting and may ask for revisions. We will respond to proposals received by 15February 2015. The full text of the selected papers (no more than 5000 words) must be emailed to the conveners by 1 June 2015, for uploading onto the group’s website. For further information please do not hesitate to contact one of the conveners.

Information about the group can be found on http://www.firt-iftr.org/working-groups/methodologies/historiography andhttp://theaterhistoriography.wordpress.com/

The current conveners of the Historiography Working Group are 

Janne Risum drajr@hum.au.dk Aarhus University, Denmark

Magnus Thor Thorbergsson ( magnusthor@lhi.is) Iceland Academy of the Arts

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Mechele Leon ( mleon@ku.edu) University of Kansas