The PRS Working Group invites proposals for conference papers and practice research for the 2022 IFTR Conference and a planned publication.

Conference Call – Performance, Religion and Spirituality Working Group

Deadline for proposals: 31st of January 2022

The group's planned publication aims to give space to voices and actions that queer, trouble, and question religious/spiritual discriminating politics. It aims to do so through visionary, innovative religious and spiritual discourses and practices.

Indeed, we are interested in the analysis of contemporary performances — activations, materialities, ‘intra-actions’ — that have religious, spiritual, mystical, ecstatic connotations and that experiment with subjectivities and collective bodies that are hybrid, inclusive, fluid, and visionary.

Therefore, our objective is to examine how performance, religion, and spirituality can contribute to inclusivity, social justice, ecological intra-subjectivities, and cultural hybridity. 

The publication will acknowledge the gravity of our current social, political, and ecological crisis, but also recognize the richness of the time in which we are living, in terms of possible future social configurations and innovative ethical perspectives. The book will locate contemporary performances, religions, and spiritualities at the centre of these possibilities.

We have identified three main branches of investigation:

• Queering Religion/s - rituals and other practices in which religious and queer identities trouble normative theologies. This might include invented, contemporary practices and theologies; the construction of queer communities in new spiritualities; traditions that re-consider the religious and spiritual qualities of queer identities; innovative hermeneutics that reflect on gender relations in canonical religious mythologies and narratives.
• Spiritual Activism/s - political activities and resistance informed by spiritual and religious discourses and practices. This might include actions grounded in the ontological sacrality of specific lands and their protection; civil disobedience inspired by spiritual and religious discourses that promote social and ecological justice; deep ecology, liberation theologies, etc.
• Spirituality/ies - Processes of Mattering - artistic processes that experiment with perception in order to question, play with, or trouble the dichotomy of ‘matter’ and ‘spirit’. This might include methods of experiencing embodiment beyond individual subjectivities and toward interconnection with extended bodies of existence at both micro and macro levels; posthuman spiritualities that blur the boundaries between the imaginary and the physical, the human and the non-human; practices of attention and attendance employed to share perceptual conditions and/or intersubjective identities.

Each of these three main branches might include much more. We are indeed open to contributions that might push these given boundaries and encourage contributions that avoid flattening the contradictions and complexities necessarily implied in the areas described above.

Submission Instructions:

• Each proposal should be no more than 300 words plus a 200-word biography.
• Proposals must be submitted through the IFTR registration process at iftr.org/conference by 31st of January 2022. All submissions are made through the Cambridge Core website
• We do not yet have information from IFTR regarding when and how to apply for bursaries. We would advise those interested in applying for a bursary to keep their attention on the conference’s official website for updated bursary news. We will update our call for submissions as we receive more information. 
• For enquiries please contact: iftr2022reykjavik@gmail.com

The Performance, Religion and Spirituality Group (PRS) is an open network of scholars and artists interested in exploring interconnections between forms and impulses of religions, spiritualities, and theatrical performances, and in attending to the ways performance and spiritual life have come into conversation, cooperation, and conflict, both historically and in the present. The working group is affiliated with two peer-reviewed journals. Performance, Religion and Spirituality, which is an open-access journal, can be found at prs-journal.org. Information about Ecumenica, a publication of Penn State University Press, can be found at www.ecumenicajournal.org.

Other links:

• https://www.iftr.org/working-groups/performance-and-religion
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/829685310382906
• http://prs-journal.org
• https://www.facebook.com/perrelspi
• http://www.ecumenicajournal.org

For inquiries about the group, please contact the PRS conveners:

Silvia Battista
Liverpool Hope University
battiss@hope.ac.uk

David Mason
Editor, Ecumenica
iamunhyphen@gmail.com