Theatre Journal – The Global South

Theatre Journal

Call for Papers

Special Issue for December 2020: The Global South

The idea of ordering regions into \”north\” and \”south\” began during the Cold War, first as the Non-Aligned Movement and then as the Group of 77 member states of the United Nations. While these nations were initially designated \”The Third World,\” the dissolution of the Soviet Union made such a designation obsolete. However, the challenges faced by the formerly colonized world remained much the same, and neoliberal globalization exacerbated already pressing environmental and economic crises. That most of these states are situated south of the imperial powers prompted political analysts to begin using the term \”global south\” in the 1980s and 1990s. It has since become a common ground for scholars and activists attempting to address large-scale problems across regional and disciplinary boundaries.

In the journal The Global South, established just a decade ago, Levander and Mignolo hoped the new ordering would offer \”productive pathways and contact points for new modes of scholarly exchange that can work against such long-standing imperatives\” that \”sustain and normalize the ways in which we parse power systems in an increasingly global age.\”[1] Working through the lens of the Global South has generated working groups at the Hemispheric Institute\’s Encuentro and the American Society for Theatre Research. Within theatre and performance studies, pulling together research on performance practices and performance history of the Global South can enable us to explore the structure of postcolonial power, dynamics of imperialism, the effects of globalism, cultural hybridities, environmental impacts, and the kinds of cooperative connections being forged between regions within the Global South that can bring productive, effective social change.

For this special issue, essays might cover performance practice, history, and theory situated in the Global South: Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Essays may examine, collaborations, hybridities, and resistances, as well as preservation, traditions, and tools of state oppression. What are our responsibilities as scholars of the Global South? How can \”(t)hose of us in postindustrial countries who research performance in these \’other\’ parts of the world should be particularly cognizant of the ethical responsibility\” to disrupt familiar \”tropes of passivity and helplessness\” as Laura Edmonson has noted?[2]What is gained by using the \”Global South\” as a conceptual frame? What is lost?

This special issue will be edited by Theatre Journal editor E.J. Westlake. We will consider both full length essays for the print edition (6,000-9,000 words) as well as proposals for other expressions of interest for our on-line platform. For information about submission, visit our website:https://jhuptheatre.org/theatre-journal/author-guidelines

Submissions (6000-9000 words) should submitted no later than 1 February 2020.

Note: Watch for our transition to submissions via ScholarOne:

https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/theatrejournal

Until then, submissions should be e-mailed to managing editor Bob Kowkabany (bobkowkabany@me.com)

Feel free to contact the editors with questions or inquiries:
E.J. Westlake, Editor at ej.westlake.theatrejournal@gmail.com
Margherita Laera, Online Editor at m.laera@kent.ac.uk