CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Performance in Historical Paradigms Working Group

Performance Studies International Conference, Toronto, June 9-13, 2010

Conveners: Robin Bernstein (Harvard University) and Ioana Szeman (Roehampton University)

Working Group Theme for 2010

Building on the momentum of a series of consecutive panels at PSi in the last few years and a collaboration with the Performance Studies Focus Group at ATHE in 2009, the Performance in Historical Paradigms working group will reconvene in Toronto to discuss the theme:

Performing History, De/constructing Publics

The conference theme of “Performing Publics” provides a productive lens for discussing Performance Studies methodologies for those of us who juggle with multiple (inter)disciplinary paradigms and use performance theory to think historically, or think historically about performance. As usual, we invite proposals that engage with the general working group focus on the intersections between performance studies and history, and with new questions inspired by the conference theme:

• How might performance studies expand, change, or challenge the field of history—and vice versa?
• Where does the merging of history and performance studies currently occur most productively? 
  
• Are there, or should there be, any limits to the use of performance theory in historical inquiry?
• How can the methods, theoretical influences, and other disciplinary preoccupations of Performance Studies apply to the study of the past?
• How do different research methodologies enable a historical perspective and what are their drawbacks?
• What constitutes evidence in the intersection of performance studies and history?
• How do the concepts of “publics” and/or “counterpublics” enable or contribute to recovering “minor” or “forgotten” histories?
• What role does performance play in consolidating or subverting hegemonic or subaltern national histories and in creating diasporic histories and transnational publics?

Please send your brief proposals (title plus one substantive paragraph) by Nov. 25th, 2009 to *both* working group conveners at:

Robin Bernstein: rbernst@fas.harvard.edu;

Ioana Szeman: mailto:I.Szeman@roehampton.ac.uk

For more information about the PSi conference in general, please see:http://www.psi-web.org/texts/conference.html

Feel free to email the conveners with ideas and questions, as well as abstracts.