ATDS Panel at American Literature Association 2020
Staging Democracy: Politics and Political Figures in 20th/21st century American Drama
American Theatre & Drama Society Panel
at the American Literature Association
31st Annual Conference May 21-24 2020 San Diego CA
The American Literature Association is a coalition of literary and drama societies devoted to the study of American authors. Since 1989, ALA’s annual conferences have provided scholars and artists from around the world a space in which to interact and to explore the richness and diversity of American writing. The American Theatre & Drama Society is dedicated to the study of theatre and drama in and of the Americas, its varied histories, traditions, literatures, identities, and performances within its cultural contexts. In furtherance of this goal, ATDS solicits proposals for its guaranteed panel at the American Literature Association Annual Conference in May 2020.
In view of the current political climate – campaigns, controversies, party polarization, and increased engagement by concerned citizens, ATDS proposes a panel focusing on dramatizations by American playwrights of America’s political systems and political leaders. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries American playwrights have increasingly explored these topics, including our democratic ideals and struggles for the realization of those ideals. From Maxwell Anderson’s Both Your Houses (1934) to Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop (2009) and Robert Schenkkan’sAll the Way (2012) to 2019 Pulitzer finalist Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me, American playwrights have used the stage to investigate political issues including courage, corruption, power, compromise, inclusion and exclusion in America’s social, cultural, and political life. We invite proposals that consider plays and performances that address these and related issues. We welcome analytical papers employing any theoretical/critical approach as well as analyses of plays in production.
Please submit a 250-word abstract by December 31, 2019 to Al Dabiri, mdabiri@mail.missouri.edu. Panelists will be notified by January 31, 2020. Panelists are expected to be or to become ATDS members. For more information on ATDS, or to join or renew, please visit https://www.atds.org/
The 2020 ALA conference will be held in San Diego CA from May 21st-24th . Panelists are expected to pre-register by April 15 2020. Those who do not register by May 1 will be dropped from the program.
Please note that the conference has an admission fee of $125 dollars ($100 for Graduate Students, Independent Scholars, and Retired Faculty).
For more information on ALA, please visit:
http://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/