Political Performances Working Group Call for Papers, Manila, Philippines, 15-19 July 2024

09 December, 2023 by Trish Reid | 0 comments

We invite proposals for conference papers, for our WG meeting in Manila, 15-19 July, 2024

IFTR 2024 Manila, Philippines, 15 to 19 July 2024 

 

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 2 February 2024

 

In line with our established practice, we have identified three loose strands that reflect the recent work of scholars in the wider field of political performances, but also align with the 2024 conference theme — Our States of Emergency: Theatres and Performances of Tragedy — which resonates particularly powerfully with the preoccupations of the Working Group

The Political Performances Working Group therefore invites proposals for papers on the following topics:  

 

(A) Epistemologies
Political theatre & performance in relation to shifting conceptions of tragedy as an aesthetic encounter: truth and post-truth; teleological structures; fatalism; excess; the generation of distinct aesthetic conceptions and their problematising; histories of racialisation, heteronormativity, and difference; dystopian dramaturgies. Political dramaturgies emerging from these/related issues. 

 

(B) Place
Political theatre & performance in relation to shifting conceptions of tragedy as a social encounter: local/regional/national and international conceptions of tragedy and their specific histories and practices; national tragedies, wars and conflicts; nationalisms; tragic physical and/or social realities; inclusion and exclusion; ecological and environmental catastrophes. Political dramaturgies emerging from these/related issue. 

 

(C) Temporalities

Political theatre & political performance in relation to temporal manifestations in, and of, the tragic: tragic time; futurity; causation; linearity; compression; interruption; prophecy; traditional tragic modes in relation to contemporary practice; transition and change; the fantastic. Political dramaturgies emerging from these/related issues.

 

 

Working Methods

The Working Group pre-circulates work-in-progress/paper drafts in advance of each conference. Crucially, this allows more time for critical response and discussion from members of the group, who will have read the papers in advance. The work of the Group relies on the exchange of ideas building over the course of the conference. We therefore expect participants to attend all PPWG meetings at the conference. We aim to make reasonable adjustments for members whose circumstances do not allow this level of commitment but strongly recommend that colleagues unable to attend the majority of WG sessions apply to the General Panels.

 

 

NB: The group welcomes research not only on contemporary political theatre, political performance and performative activism, but also on historical manifestations of political theatre and performance, and diachronic research.

 

Abstract Submission 

Please submit abstracts through the Cambridge Core website. In order to make a submission you will need to be a member of IFTR: https://www.cambridge.org/core/membership/iftr. When you submit your abstract, please make sure to indicate you are submitting to the ‘Political Performances Working Group’.  

  

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 2 February 2024. 

  

Working Group Convenors

 

Dr Julia Boll: Universität Konstanz

Professor Trish Reid: University of Reading

 

Working Group Contact: iftrpolperf@gmail.com

 

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