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Posts by Pria Williams:
JDTC Special Section – Consent and its Limits
Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
Special section: Consent and Its Limits
Edited by Lindsay Brandon Hunter and Aaron C. Thomas
In a recent keyword essay on “Consent,” Emily Owens marks the overwhelming centrality of the concept in discourse orbiting sex, describing “a chorus of journalistic, activist, and scholarly” interests that attempt to organize the various, manifold valences of sex under “the power of a single rubric: consent.” Consent has become no less vital a notion within the practice of theatre and performance—perhaps most visibly in the ascendancy and professionalization of intimacy choreography, which Joy Brooke Fairfield identifies, in a 2019 special section on the subject in JDTC, as having “coalesced to describe a wide variety of creative and pedagogical practices that prioritize the consent and body sovereignty of the actor.”
As a means to address the field, profession, and industry’s histories of abuse, commitments to consent-based practice appear as a necessary labor condition for the doing of theatre and performance, perhaps especially in academia (which has its own particular histories of abuse). Still, the sometimes totalizing presentation of consent as self-evident, binary, and universally accessible tends to smooth over what Owens calls its “vexatious nature” and, as Jennifer Nash points out in “Pedagogies of Desire,” “masks its roots in ideas of white liberal personhood.” The problematics of consent lie not only in the myriad understandings of its definition and practice but, as Owens notes, in its foundation in transactional logic indebted to capitalism and extraction and its “sinister applications of consent discourse” in service to colonial powers, particularly in the U.S. How can we hold consent up to scrutiny while continuing to acknowledge the urgency and severity of the harms it is so routinely mobilized to address within our fields?
The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism seeks contributions to a special section that rigorously interrogates the idea of consent as it works in theatre, performance, and the university. We welcome contributions that recognize the complexity of consent as a notion and a practice, considering both the seemingly self-evident necessity of consent within labor practices in our field and its limits as a theoretical foundation, as articulated by Nash, Owens, and others. Contributions might:
- think through the implications and inheritances of consent, including its relationship to liberal ideas of autonomy and self-sufficiency
- consider alternative theoretical frameworks useful within theatre and performance studies that a reflexive reliance on consent could obscure
- engage critically with modes of practice or works of contemporary performance or dramatic literature that approach consent in particularly nuanced or complex ways
- explore contexts that challenge the utility or applicability of consent as an organizing principle for ethical or liberated embodiment
- offer analyses of how consent functions (or doesn’t) in theatrical and pedagogical spaces, including across the curriculum and outside of instructional touch
- contextualize universities’ strenuous promotion of consent as a means of organizing sexual experience on campus
We invite critical essays of approximately 5,000 words, or shorter pieces—manifestos, provocations, case studies—of between 750 and 1,500 words. For consideration, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by July 15th, 2024. Completed articles will be due in late November, 2024. The special section is slated for publication in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism in Spring 2025. Inquiries are welcome. All correspondence and proposals should be directed to Lindsay Brandon Hunter and Aaron C. Thomas at lhunter@buffalo.edu and acthomas@fsu.edu.
Cachimbonas – Celebrating Latina/e Dramatists & Social Engagement
Cachimbonas!: Celebrating Latina/e Dramatists & Social Engagement
Call for Abstracts of Papers and Presentations
On Thursday, April 24, through April 26, 2025, the University of Missouri Department of Theatre and Performance in cooperation with the Cambio Center, MU Libraries, and The Bridge, will host a new theatre and drama conference, Cachimbonas!: Celebrating Latina/e Dramatists & Social Engagement, which will feature a full production of Romero, an award-winning new play by Xiomara Cornejo, Salvadoran American director/playwright. Cachimbonas is a Central American term for a “strong, fierce, courageous woman,” or “good person,” and the conference will be centered on the work of Latina/e dramatists and will celebrate the lives, music, food, and culture of the traditions of those would have come to the US from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. The conference will give special attention to Latina dramatists (for both stage and screen) who deal with issues of social justice, migration, undocumented workers, and the border with a special focus on the Mexican and Central American refugee experience. Xiomara’s play focuses on the assassination of El Salvador’s Archbishop Óscar A. Romero and his subsequent canonization, but more broadly looks at faith as resistance, liberation theology, and the impact of war and US intervention in Central America.
While the primary focus will be scholarly papers and creative workshops that address the work of Latina dramatists who focus on the above-mentioned issues in their work, some of the panels we’d like to present will be more broadly focused on Latine and Latin American theatre artists and dramatic literature, and how these works get at the realities of issues like US intervention, the US border, refugees, and migration. Featured guest artists include renowned playwright Elaine Romero, award-winning author of Title IX and Mother of Exiles, and professor of theatre at University of Arizona at Tucson, Xiomara Cornejo, author of Romero, Theater of the Oppressed practitioner, and assistant professor of theatre at the University of Illinois at Chicago , and Lil Lamberta, a trans non-binary mother, artist, puppeteer and Founder/Director of All The Saints Theater Company, all of whom will be teaching workshops in Theatre of the Oppressed, Dramatic Writing, and Radical Puppetry as part of the conference. The conference seeks to support the work of every level of theatre, drama, and performance scholarship, however, we’ll be offering a special focus on emerging scholars who might debut with this conference.
Scholars and Artists wishing to present at the conference should send:
- An abstract of 150-250 words describing topic(s), goals, and guiding questions
- A short bio (50 words) and your contact information including email and phone number
Submissions must be received by Nov. 15, 2024, and in order to attract emerging scholars and artists, we’ll be keeping registration low, and it will be free to all MU students, faculty, and staff.
For additional information about the conference contact Dr. David A. Crespy at his email: crespyd@missouri.edu.
States of Emergency – ATDS Online Pre-Conference
States/Stages of Emergency: An ATDS Pre-Conference
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 over Zoom
Proposals to participate as a panelist due: June 15, 2024
This is an emergency. From neoliberal capitalism and censorship of our stages and our syllabi to physical assaults on our students and legislated attacks on anti-racist programming and queer, trans, and nonbinary people, U.S. American higher education calls upon us to organize.
This American Theatre and Drama Society pre-conference will have free registration and take place online to gather all of us, as we aim to include those who might not be able to attend the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Atlanta for accessibility, caregiving, political, financial, and/or environmental reasons. Let’s plan.
State of the Job Market
Following up on ATDS’s Adjunct Advocacy session at last summer’s ATHE, this session will look specifically at the current state of the academic job market in theatre and performance studies. Noe Montez (Associate Professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, Tufts University) will share the latest data from his job market tracking research. There will then be an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and share reflections on the 2023-2024 job cycle, and for the group to brainstorm ways to advocate for more full-time positions within our institutions as well as imagine more diverse careers for theatre and performance scholars and educators.
Stages of Censorship
With alarming frequency and as proclaimed by the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund (DLDF), theatre productions are being banned. “We are no longer dealing with one off cancellations driven by the squeamishness of a particular high school principal,” said DLDF President John Weidman. “We are dealing with deliberate, orchestrated efforts by institutions, from local school boards all the way up to state legislatures, to dictate the ideological boundaries within which theater will be permitted, the space within which the unique, idiosyncratic voices of Americans writing for the stage will either be tolerated or suppressed.”
This roundtable invites the perspectives of participants with direct experience and/or historical perspectives on theater censorship at the intersections of politics, culture, and artistic expression. Following 6-8 minute presentations of participants’ case-studies, open conversation will follow concerning the stakes of censorship in theatre today. If you are interested in presenting a case study, please submit a brief abstract and a 100-word bio using this form by June 15, 2024.
Restrictive States: Centering Comrades on the Ground
Building on our statement last year, this roundtable highlights colleagues working in institutions where state legislatures have banned EDI pedagogy and drag performance and undermined tenure and shared governance. They will share their experiences contending with these policies in order to educate attendees and strategize collective actions.
If you are interested in offering 5-minute remarks as a formal panelist, then please submit a 100150-word abstract summarizing your potential contribution and a 100-word bio using this form by June 15, 2024.
Note for Attendees:
Registration information for all those who would like to participate in this virtual Pre-Conference as attendees will be available in the coming weeks.
Attendance is free and open to ATDS members and non-members!
Questions:
The ATDS virtual Pre-Conference planning team is listed below. Please feel free to reach out to with any questions.
Ginny Anderson (vanderso@conncoll.edu)
Donatella Galella (galella@ucr.edu)
Amy Meyer (meyer.amy.e@gmail.com)
Heidi Nees (hlnees@bgsu.edu)
Samuel Yates (yates@psu.edu)
States/Stages of Emergency: An ATDS Pre-Conference
States/Stages of Emergency: An ATDS Pre-Conference
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 over Zoom
Proposals to participate as a panelist due: June 15, 2024
This is an emergency. From neoliberal capitalism and censorship of our stages and our syllabi to physical assaults on our students and legislated attacks on anti-racist programming and queer, trans, and nonbinary people, U.S. American higher education calls upon us to organize.
This American Theatre and Drama Society pre-conference will have free registration and take place online to gather all of us, as we aim to include those who might not be able to attend the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Atlanta for accessibility, caregiving, political, financial, and/or environmental reasons. Let’s plan.
State of the Job Market
Following up on ATDS’s Adjunct Advocacy session at last summer’s ATHE, this session will look specifically at the current state of the academic job market in theatre and performance studies. Noe Montez (Associate Professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, Tufts University) will share the latest data from his job market tracking research. There will then be an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and share reflections on the 2023-2024 job cycle, and for the group to brainstorm ways to advocate for more full-time positions within our institutions as well as imagine more diverse careers for theatre and performance scholars and educators.
Stages of Censorship
With alarming frequency and as proclaimed by the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund (DLDF), theatre productions are being banned. “We are no longer dealing with one off cancellations driven by the squeamishness of a particular high school principal,” said DLDF President John Weidman. “We are dealing with deliberate, orchestrated efforts by institutions, from local school boards all the way up to state legislatures, to dictate the ideological boundaries within which theater will be permitted, the space within which the unique, idiosyncratic voices of Americans writing for the stage will either be tolerated or suppressed.”
This roundtable invites the perspectives of participants with direct experience and/or historical perspectives on theater censorship at the intersections of politics, culture, and artistic expression. Following 6-8 minute presentations of participants’ case-studies, open conversation will follow concerning the stakes of censorship in theatre today. If you are interested in presenting a case study, please submit a brief abstract and a 100-word bio using this form by June 15, 2024.
Restrictive States: Centering Comrades on the Ground
Building on our statement last year, this roundtable highlights colleagues working in institutions where state legislatures have banned EDI pedagogy and drag performance and undermined tenure and shared governance. They will share their experiences contending with these policies in order to educate attendees and strategize collective actions.
If you are interested in offering 5-minute remarks as a formal panelist, then please submit a 100150-word abstract summarizing your potential contribution and a 100-word bio using this form by June 15, 2024.
Note for Attendees:
Registration information for all those who would like to participate in this virtual Pre-Conference as attendees will be available in the coming weeks.
Attendance is free and open to ATDS members and non-members!
Questions:
The ATDS virtual Pre-Conference planning team is listed below. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.
Ginny Anderson (vanderso@conncoll.edu)
Donatella Galella (galella@ucr.edu)
Amy Meyer (meyer.amy.e@gmail.com)
Heidi Nees (hlnees@bgsu.edu) Samuel Yates (yates@psu.edu)
ATDS First Book Bootcamp 2024
Canadian Association for Theatre Research Panel
Plants Beyond Borders
Plants Beyond Borders
Although they are the most abundant life form on earth, plants have received scant attention from ecocritics until recently. As allies in the rethinking of human exceptionalism and the limits of human conceptions of nation, race, sexuality, disability, and invasion, plants challenge us to reimagine our philosophical and material relationship to the beings which enable each breath we take.
For this edited collection (working title: Plants Beyond Borders) we invite 4,000-6,000 word- contributions that take an interdisciplinary approach to reimagining and rethinking plants and/or human relationships with plants throughout the Americas. Genres might include but are not limited to literature, performance studies, film studies, and art. This collection comes out of our Critical Plant Studies Modern Language Association panels in 2021 and 2024. It has attracted interest from a university press, and we anticipate publishing through a university press.
Proposals might consider:
- Resistance: exploring how gardening and deploying plants in art, culture, and performance offer models of resistance for human crises like war, systemic racism, industrialized capitalism, unnatural disasters, and climate change.
- Vitality: exploring how plant temporality, sentience, and mobility challenge philosophical, judicial, and ontological limits on current definitions of life and the right to exist across multiple categories of beings.
- Sexuality: exploring the vast range of plant sexualities and reproductive modes which challenge contemporary and historical notions of the spectrum of sexual desire and experience.
- “Invasive Species”: considering how colonization, decolonization, deforestation, the plantationocene, and histories of vegetal life connect to human histories and contiguities of slavery, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity.
- Disability Studies and Plant Studies: Exploring atypicality and adaptations in humans and plants.
Please send proposals (300-500 words) and brief biographies (100 words) to Alicia Carroll (Auburn University) and Courtney Ryan (Lafayette College) at carroal@auburn.edu and crdram12@gmail.com by May 1, 2024. Collaborative proposals are welcome, and proposals from BIPOC scholars are encouraged. If accepted, completed chapters of 4,000-6,000 words will be due September 2, 2024.
Call for Theatre Annual Editor
Call for Theatre Annual Editor
2024 NEH Institute on Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing
Brown University Library is pleased to announce a call for applications for the 2024 NEH Institute on Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing which will occur this July. Thank you in advance for sharing the following call for applications widely with your networks. It is much appreciated.
Call for Applications
Brown University Digital Publications invites applications for participation in an NEH Institute on Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities, Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Roadmaps. The three-week hybrid Institute will take place virtually July 8–19 and in person at Brown University July 22–26, 2024. Participant travel, lodging, and per diem expenses will be covered for the in-person component.*
Purpose and Structure
Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Roadmaps supports scholars who wish to pursue interpretive projects that require digital expression and are intended for publication by a scholarly press, but who may lack resources and capacity at their home institutions.
Projects must be conceived of as born-digital, or digital-first. The institute does not support digitization projects or the development of supplemental websites for print books, but rather digital monographs, or digital publication projects anchored by an original, long-form narrative. The institute will train a cohort of 15 scholars—including unaffiliated scholars, adjunct professors, and part-time faculty from a range of disciplines, institution type, and geographical location—in best practices unique to the development of digital scholarly publications. The cohort will be supported by a faculty composed of authors of published or in-progress enhanced digital monographs and digital publishing experts from university presses and Brown University Digital Publications.
The institute has been organized as a hybrid, multi-phased training and mentoring program:
- A two-week virtual course will introduce participants to resources, considerations, and strategies for digital publishing (July 8–19, 2024).
- A one-week in-person workshop will yield individualized roadmaps for cohort projects (July 22–26, 2024).
- Two two-day virtual check-ins will extend individualized project support (Oct. 2024 and Jan. 2025).
Eligibility
The application is open to scholars of all ranks, including university faculty and adjuncts, postdoctoral researchers, and independent scholars. Applicants must have a Ph.D.
Brown University Library is a member of the HBCU Library Alliance. Based on this affiliation, some slots will be reserved for participants from member institutions.
International applicants are welcome, though the NEH Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities (IATDH) program focuses on scholars currently studying or employed at institutions in the United States. Thus, U.S. citizens and/or U.S.-based scholars will be given priority. International applicants and/or persons without a current U.S. visa should note that, if selected and if an in-person meeting is possible, a visa cannot be guaranteed.
How to Apply
The following materials should be sent to digitalpublishing@brown.edu, no later than April 1, 2024:
- A statement (maximum 3 pages) that directly addresses the following questions:
- Describe your digital monograph project. Why is the digital format necessary for advancing your argument? What is the current state of the project?
- How would your project benefit from and contribute to a collaborative Institute experience?
- How will your participation in the Institute contribute to expanding digital scholarship at your institution or in your field?
- A current C.V.
Notification of Acceptance: May 1, 2024