13th International Arthur Miller Conference – Update

Call for Papers

The 13th International Arthur Miller Conference

Ashland University | Ashland, Ohio October 18-20, 2019

Conference Topic: Arthur Miller and the Question of Relevance

In his remarks at Arthur Miller’s memorial service at the Majestic Theater in New York City in 2005, Tony Kushner noted Miller “demanded that we must be able to answer, on behalf of our plays, our endeavors, our lives, a really tough question, one that Arthur wrote was the chief and, in a sense, only reason for writing and speaking: ‘What is its relevancy,’ he asks, ‘to the survival of the race? Not,’ he stipulates, ‘the American race, or the Jewish race, or the German race, but the human race.’ He demanded that our work and our lives have some relevance to human survival.” A decade later, in her foreword to the 2015 Centennial edition of Miller’s collected plays, Lynn Nottage described how she had been drawn repeatedly to Miller’s work, in part, because “Miller’s plays have transcended time, not simply because they are beautifully crafted, but also because they are important social documents that capture moral conundrums that resonate powerfully for audiences today.”

This conference invites papers to explore Miller’s life and work in relation to this question of relevance, be it in terms legacy, influence, connection, appositeness, validity, or rejection. Papers are welcome to consider Miller’s dramatic works in comparison with other playwrights. And because we will gather in the Midwest, we also seek papers that address this question in relation to the idea of Miller and Middle America.

The conference will include a production of a Miller play on Saturday evening, October 19.

Abstracts or completed manuscripts for a presentation not to exceed twenty minutes should be forwarded to: millerconference2019@ashland.edu

Deadline for submission is March 15, 2019.