CFP: About Performance #12: “High Stakes: Risk and Performance”
Deadline for proposals: 31st March 2013
CALL FOR PAPERS
About Performance #12: “High Stakes: Risk and Performance”
Deadline for proposals: 31st March 2013
About Performance is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. Each issue is devoted to a single theme. This is the call for proposals for Issue #12, to appear in May 2014.
Co-editors for this issue: Paul Dwyer (University of Sydney) and Mary Ann Hunter (University of Tasmania)
“High Stakes: Risk and Performance”
Performance practices have often been valued in terms of the ‘safe space’ they provide but what exactly are the risks involved? Why should anyone imagine they can be contained simply by framing an activity as ‘performance’? In any case, isn’t risk typically a large part of the pull of performance—the fear of failure, the thrill of the ride? Accidents will happen. A risqué joke can offend, a safety harness can fail, children and animals are unreliable (and often, for this very reason, in demand), a court case becomes a show trial, a casual tweet turns into a media event, some spectators bring guns with them to the theatre while others seek refuge from theatres of war. Not every performative act will achieve its ‘conditions of felicity’ but all are ghosted by calculations of likely effect and affect.
For this issue of About Performance, we invite contributors to consider the different kinds of risk we negotiate in performance, the circumstances in which they arise, the degree to which they may be anticipated, minimized or manipulated for all they are worth. We seek, in particular, proposals that approach the notion of risk not simply in terms of ‘daring’ aesthetics but also in relation to lasting interpersonal and social consequences: How do people perform when the stakes are really high, when the pressure is really on, at that moment where things could go very, very wrong indeed? How might new times have disturbed practices we once thought to be safe? Or, conversely, what might the benefits of historical perspective or intercultural insight teach us about the parameters of risk in performance?
We also encourage potential contributors to engage, where relevant, with questions of methodology and epistemology: What risks might be involved in researching risk? What theoretical frameworks might offer the most ‘purchase’ when it comes to evaluating risk? Do we turn to Ulrich Beck’s theorization of the ‘risk society’ for guidance or the common sense of ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’? The protocols of a University Human Research Ethics Committee or the ethics of Levinas? The forecasts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the track record of disaster capitalism? Theoretical innovation (including a mistrust of binary oppositions!) is welcomed.
Proposals (200-300 words) are invited for articles dealing with any of the above issues in relation to any genre of aesthetic performance or live art, social or cultural performance, ritual and other performance activity. Articles are normally between 6,000 and 8,000 words. Please send your proposal by email to both editors for this issue, Dr Paul Dwyer (paul.dwyer@sydney.edu.au) and Dr Mary Ann Hunter (MaryAnn.Hunter@utas.edu.au), including a brief cover note giving your institutional affiliation, mailing and email addresses. Proposals should be received by March 31st 2013 and we will notify you within a month as to whether the proposal has been accepted. The deadline for completed articles is end of October 2013. Articles are then submitted to a peer review process. Authors will have six weeks to address any recommendations for revision before final manuscripts are due at the end of January 2014. The journal will be published in May 2014.
