11th International Conference on Eugene O’Neill
O’Neill Beyond the Horizon(s)
The 11th International Conference on Eugene O’Neill
Suffolk University
Boston, Massachusetts
June 17 – 20, 2020
At the 100-year anniversary of Eugene O’Neill’s first full-length play—Beyond the Horizon(1920), which garnered his first Pulitzer Prize–and of the first play to break the color line on Broadway—The Emperor Jones (1920)—it seems fitting to look beyond the many horizons that have shaped O’Neill’s legacy for modern theatre.
This conference takes up the themes of beyondness, performative afterlives, and breaking with conventions: beyond canonical readings of O’Neill’s plays and stagings to consider the legacy of O’Neill’s dramaturgical innovations. We seek participants who wish to explore O’Neill’s own experimentation in his lifetime as well as experimental approaches to O’Neill in our own time. We invite scholars, historians, directors, playwrights, actors, and teachers to examine new ways of engaging O’Neill, thereby expanding our own scholarly and pedagogical horizons.
Boston’s geography is central to the conference, just as it was foundational to O’Neill’s development as a playwright. O’Neill was tethered not only to Boston/Cambridge (his brief early stint at Harvard; his later stint at the Shelton Hotel, now part of Boston University; and his eternal stint at Forest Hills Cemetery), but also to spaces beyond Boston/Cambridge. Facing out to the Atlantic horizon from the Boston harbor, Cape Cod and Provincetown beckon from the right and Marblehead from the left. Indeed, New England remained an inspiration for the setting of many of O’Neill’s plays, including and beyond Beyond the Horizon. Together, these spaces constitute important grids of O’Neill’s performative cartography, offering fresh perspectives of the horizons beyond.
We invite proposals on all aspects of O’Neill’s work, whether specifically relating to the conference theme, or not.
Proposals are invited in these formats:
- Individual papers of 15-20 minutes
- Panel presentations on a particular theme with three speakers, none to exceed 20 minutes
- Roundtable discussions of 75 minutes on a particular topic, with 3-6 participants
- Creative works such as performances/ staged readings/ videographic essays
- Working Groups with an eye toward publication (possibly with the Eugene O’Neill Review)
- Graduate Student and Advanced Undergraduate student presentations
- Ted-talk style presentations
Please send a 250-word proposal, including name, academic affiliation, mail and email addresses, paper title, and desired format. Panel or roundtable proposals should include this information for all participants, with brief abstracts for panels or participant bios for roundtables.
Send proposals by email by September 1, 2019 to Katie Johnson at johnso33@miamioh.edu. If you are considering something experimental and wish to consult more about an idea before the deadline, we encourage you to write to Katie Johnson.
Conference Organizers: Steven Bloom and Beth Wynstra
Conference Session Planner: Katie Johnson
Interested in joining the Eugene O’Neill Society? Click here for more details.