Reminder: Call for Papers: ADSA’s Gender and Sexuality Werking Group Symposium SPILL: Queer Performance’s Messy Leakages
| Type of post: | Association news item |
| Sub-type: | No sub-type |
| Posted By: | Bridget Mac Eochagain |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Wed, 21 Jan 2026 |
Call for Papers: ADSA’s Gender and Sexuality Werking Group Symposium
SPILL: Queer Performance’s Messy Leakages
Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne Australia
Saturday 4th July – Monday 6th July 2026
Co-Convenors: Triss Niemi (Flinders), Bridget Mac Eochagain (USyd),
Ian Ramirez (UniMelb), Andrew Sutherland (VCA)
The Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama, and Performance Studies welcomes its members and international colleagues to an interim event hosted by The Gender and Sexuality Werking Group.
As we approach 10 years post-publication of Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer we think it pertinent to return to Alyson Campbell and Stephen Farrier’s description of queer performance as “excessive, flowing over [with] meaning-making … both indecipherable and full of meaning at the same time” (2). We continue to reflect “in the hours/days/years after these encounters” with Campbell and Farrier’s work on the notion that “performance [allows] for … a queerly transitory suspension of the regular rules of sociality” (3).
In their 2023 editorial ‘What’s Queer About Queer Performance Now?’, Campbell, Farrier and Kumarswamy point to a trend in the global North where scholars “frequently come up against the idea within and beyond the academy that queer is ‘done’, ‘over’” (3). However, we live in a time where “queer performance does not appear across the globe in a consistent and coherent fashion” and so cannot “characterise all queer performance as done, perfectly formed, open, and resistive” (1).
This is, of course, often a result of the socio-political climates in which Queer art and knowledge workers find themselves. In the short time since this editorial’s publication, we have seen an entrenchment and escalation of these tensions. We have seen a down pour of legislation against trans and queer lives in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Hungary. We have seen the floodgates burst open as the international community more-and-more stands against the genocides occurring across the globe. We have seen institutions attempt to drown out these voices as censorship, pinkwashing, and homonationalism become ever-more-visible in Western countries.
Drawing from Campbell & Farrier’s practices of queer theory gone ‘feral’ (see: https://feralqueercamp.com/), we invite thinking on how we might navigate Queer practices within increasing hostile institutional environments. Who are we doing this work for? Are we fooling ourselves? How can our Queerness and resistance leak out from institutional walls, and how can we consciously turn this leak into a spill?
From our position within Oceania, Queer performance can sit uneasily between the institutional and the radical, slipping from the margins into the walls of the mainstage, the academy, and the state-funded theatre; potentially becoming stuck, co-opted or ‘stopped up’. We are moved by Marcus Bell’s description, in writing on the genealogies of queer gestures and performances they have missed, of “what happens as performance spills out of the present … how, like a gesture, ephemeral things can reemerge, reappear, and rework themselves—documenting the ways in which performance slips out of and jumps across different times and spaces in queer studies” (142).
We keep this in mind as we ask what of Campbell and Farrier’s initial ‘flowing over’ or Bell’s ‘spill’ remains with us? How much of it has dried up or slipped away? Where does Queer continue to leak out onto us?
We also ask once ‘spilled’, what messes does Queer performance emerge from? What is its residue? What sticks to us in the befores, the afters, the missed opportunities and the almost-but-not-quites of Queer performance? We ask not just what makes us Queer but what keeps us Queer, and propels us to try and try again?
We invite proposals that consider – but are not limited to – the following subjects:
Unpanels (indicative time: 45 – 90 minutes collectively) – Non-hierarchical, facilitated conversations where knowledge is co-created amongst a panel of speakers rather than delivered one at time, fostering open and emergent discussions.
Ephemeral Manifestos (indicative time: 15 – 45 minutes) – Indicative examples include collaborative writing, speaking, or performance-based actions that unfold and dissolve in real time, resisting fixity and traditional documentation.
Transmissions (5 – 15 minutes) – Sonic, digital, or visual interventions. Indicative examples could take the form of audio essays, experimental monologues, or poetic interruptions
(Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence)
Collaborative sharings between Australian/New Zealand and international academics are strongly encouraged; we also encourage you to propose intergenerational sharings. Please consider what form is best for your ideas, as shorter sharings allow more ideas to circulate in the room and enriches the quality of discussion. For the purposes of accessing research funding, all papers are invited equally.
Please clearly indicate your preferred format in your proposal, with a specific breakdown of any technical requirements. We will do our best to accommodate all requests, but please be aware that we are working with finite resources and may need to suggest alternative formats. Alongside traditional written abstracts, we welcome proposals in alternative forms to support your access preference and pleasure, e.g. voice notes or videos up to 1.5 minutes in length. We will prioritise proposals that address the areas mentioned in this call for papers.
To send a proposal please include:
Please submit your proposal to: bridget.maceochagain@sydney.edu.au and triss.niemi@flinders.edu.au
Submission date: Friday 23 January 2026 (EXTENDED TO 6th FEBRUARY)
Expected notification by: Friday 13 February 2026 (lucky!!)
Works Cited
Bell, Marcus. “Encountering Absence.” The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Queer Theory. Edited by Ella Haselswerdt, Sara H. Lindheim, Kirk Ormand. Routledge, 2023.
Campbell, Alyson, Stephen Farrier, and Manola-Gayatri Kumarswamy. “What’s Queer about Queer Performance Now?.” Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 33, no.1– 2, 2023, pp. 1–13, https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2023.2170080.
Campbell, Alyson and Farrier, Stephen. “Introduction.” Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer. Edited by Alyson Campbell and Stephen Farrier, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Trans+ Virtual Centre for Excellence. “1st Annual Symposium.” July 2025, https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/whats-on/trans-virtual-centre-of-excellence-tvce-1st-annual-symposium.
SPILL: Queer Performance’s Messy Leakages
Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne Australia
Saturday 4th July – Monday 6th July 2026
Co-Convenors: Triss Niemi (Flinders), Bridget Mac Eochagain (USyd),
Ian Ramirez (UniMelb), Andrew Sutherland (VCA)
The Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama, and Performance Studies welcomes its members and international colleagues to an interim event hosted by The Gender and Sexuality Werking Group.
As we approach 10 years post-publication of Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer we think it pertinent to return to Alyson Campbell and Stephen Farrier’s description of queer performance as “excessive, flowing over [with] meaning-making … both indecipherable and full of meaning at the same time” (2). We continue to reflect “in the hours/days/years after these encounters” with Campbell and Farrier’s work on the notion that “performance [allows] for … a queerly transitory suspension of the regular rules of sociality” (3).
In their 2023 editorial ‘What’s Queer About Queer Performance Now?’, Campbell, Farrier and Kumarswamy point to a trend in the global North where scholars “frequently come up against the idea within and beyond the academy that queer is ‘done’, ‘over’” (3). However, we live in a time where “queer performance does not appear across the globe in a consistent and coherent fashion” and so cannot “characterise all queer performance as done, perfectly formed, open, and resistive” (1).
This is, of course, often a result of the socio-political climates in which Queer art and knowledge workers find themselves. In the short time since this editorial’s publication, we have seen an entrenchment and escalation of these tensions. We have seen a down pour of legislation against trans and queer lives in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Hungary. We have seen the floodgates burst open as the international community more-and-more stands against the genocides occurring across the globe. We have seen institutions attempt to drown out these voices as censorship, pinkwashing, and homonationalism become ever-more-visible in Western countries.
Drawing from Campbell & Farrier’s practices of queer theory gone ‘feral’ (see: https://feralqueercamp.com/), we invite thinking on how we might navigate Queer practices within increasing hostile institutional environments. Who are we doing this work for? Are we fooling ourselves? How can our Queerness and resistance leak out from institutional walls, and how can we consciously turn this leak into a spill?
From our position within Oceania, Queer performance can sit uneasily between the institutional and the radical, slipping from the margins into the walls of the mainstage, the academy, and the state-funded theatre; potentially becoming stuck, co-opted or ‘stopped up’. We are moved by Marcus Bell’s description, in writing on the genealogies of queer gestures and performances they have missed, of “what happens as performance spills out of the present … how, like a gesture, ephemeral things can reemerge, reappear, and rework themselves—documenting the ways in which performance slips out of and jumps across different times and spaces in queer studies” (142).
We keep this in mind as we ask what of Campbell and Farrier’s initial ‘flowing over’ or Bell’s ‘spill’ remains with us? How much of it has dried up or slipped away? Where does Queer continue to leak out onto us?
We also ask once ‘spilled’, what messes does Queer performance emerge from? What is its residue? What sticks to us in the befores, the afters, the missed opportunities and the almost-but-not-quites of Queer performance? We ask not just what makes us Queer but what keeps us Queer, and propels us to try and try again?
We invite proposals that consider – but are not limited to – the following subjects:
- Queer performance and affect theory
- Viscosity, ephemera, residue, fluid & Queer performance
- Queer responses/resistances to institutional violence
- Feral Queer practices
- Australasian Queer performance practices
- Practice-as-research and practice-based research approaches
- Queer performance and settler-colonial studies and/or decolonial praxis
- Autoethnographic responses to Queer performance
- Queer performance and Queer temporalities
- The relationship between Queer and Trans* theory
- Direct engagement with Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer edited by Alyson Campbell & Stephen Farrier (Palgrave Macmillan 2016).
Unpanels (indicative time: 45 – 90 minutes collectively) – Non-hierarchical, facilitated conversations where knowledge is co-created amongst a panel of speakers rather than delivered one at time, fostering open and emergent discussions.
Ephemeral Manifestos (indicative time: 15 – 45 minutes) – Indicative examples include collaborative writing, speaking, or performance-based actions that unfold and dissolve in real time, resisting fixity and traditional documentation.
Transmissions (5 – 15 minutes) – Sonic, digital, or visual interventions. Indicative examples could take the form of audio essays, experimental monologues, or poetic interruptions
(Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence)
Collaborative sharings between Australian/New Zealand and international academics are strongly encouraged; we also encourage you to propose intergenerational sharings. Please consider what form is best for your ideas, as shorter sharings allow more ideas to circulate in the room and enriches the quality of discussion. For the purposes of accessing research funding, all papers are invited equally.
Please clearly indicate your preferred format in your proposal, with a specific breakdown of any technical requirements. We will do our best to accommodate all requests, but please be aware that we are working with finite resources and may need to suggest alternative formats. Alongside traditional written abstracts, we welcome proposals in alternative forms to support your access preference and pleasure, e.g. voice notes or videos up to 1.5 minutes in length. We will prioritise proposals that address the areas mentioned in this call for papers.
To send a proposal please include:
- The title of your contribution
- Approximately 250 words that outline your ideas
- For Unpanels, you are welcome to curate your own group of presenters; or, if proposing as an individual, the convenors will work to match you with other presenters.
- Information on format of presentation and any technical requirements
- Ideal time allocation – how long do you need for what you want to present?
- A short, 100-word biographical note
Please submit your proposal to: bridget.maceochagain@sydney.edu.au and triss.niemi@flinders.edu.au
Submission date: Friday 23 January 2026 (EXTENDED TO 6th FEBRUARY)
Expected notification by: Friday 13 February 2026 (lucky!!)
Works Cited
Bell, Marcus. “Encountering Absence.” The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Queer Theory. Edited by Ella Haselswerdt, Sara H. Lindheim, Kirk Ormand. Routledge, 2023.
Campbell, Alyson, Stephen Farrier, and Manola-Gayatri Kumarswamy. “What’s Queer about Queer Performance Now?.” Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 33, no.1– 2, 2023, pp. 1–13, https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2023.2170080.
Campbell, Alyson and Farrier, Stephen. “Introduction.” Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer. Edited by Alyson Campbell and Stephen Farrier, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Trans+ Virtual Centre for Excellence. “1st Annual Symposium.” July 2025, https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/whats-on/trans-virtual-centre-of-excellence-tvce-1st-annual-symposium.
