The Samuel Beckett Working Group will be meeting at the FIRT/IFTR International Federation for Theatre Research Annual Conference 2019.

The IFTR Samuel Beckett working group is keen to continue directing its attention over the next few years toward Beckett’s work in performance internationally, with particular attention paid to non-Anglophone and European contexts. The working group has long welcomed delegates from around the world and for the upcoming 2019 conference in Shanghai, the focus of the meeting will be on Beckett’s work within international theatre and performance cultures. As with previous years, we will welcome papers dealing with the general conference theme https://www.iftr.org/conference, Theatre, Performance and Urbanism, and especially welcome papers which deal with one or more of the following questions:

 

• In what ways do artists from around the world translate Beckett’s work into their own contexts? And in what ways can we trace the intersections between Asian performance traditions and Beckett’s theatre?  

• In what ways do artists experiment with the work, while negotiating a longstanding ‘tradition’ in performing Beckett within urban Anglophone / European contexts, one maintained in many cases by the Beckett Estate?

• What are the politics of intercultural exchange when it comes to Beckett’s work?

• What are the international connections already visible between Beckett’s writing and theatre communities, and how might we trace the histories of the wealth of cultural interchange that has preceded this moment, even as we look toward critical discussion of Beckett’s place in the contemporary scene internationally?

• How might such conversations begin to allow us to unpack the very concepts of home, nation, border, and other political boundaries including those between the urban and the rural, and how these intersect with a globalised theatre and culture industry?

• Can we begin to think about Beckett, theatre and colonialism / decolonisation in the broadest global context?

 

 

 

 

If you are interested in joining the Working Group in Shanghai, please do get in touch; Abstracts should be submitted through the IFTR’s online system, managed by Cambridge Journals. Details will be posted on the IFTR website (http://www.firt-iftr.org/). You need to send a title and a 250 word abstract by 7^th January 2019. Submissions will be accepted from 9th October 2018.

For more information please contact the convenor Dr Trish McTighe (t.mctighe@bham.ac.uk)

Papers (length 5,000 words) are to be submitted for distribution by 01 June 2019.

For information about the general conference, fees, and housing, check the IFTR website. Please also check for updates on the Samuel Beckett Working Group page [https://www.iftr.org/working-groups/samuel-beckett]

We greatly look forward to welcoming you to Shanghai!

Please note that papers to be presented at the Working Group are distributed and read by all the participants ahead of the meeting. At the Working Group sessions presenters give short résumés of their work, followed by a lengthy discussion period (each presenter has 30 to 45 minutes in all, depending on the number of presenters). This is an extremely effective method, which allows ideas to be discussed, debated and evaluated, with participants suggesting directions for the presenters’ work-in-progress. It is the Working Group’s aim to make good papers great! There is limited space for presenters; there will also be a limited space for auditors, who would also be sent the papers to read, and be encouraged to engage in the discussions during the sessions.