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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">American
Society for Theatre Research</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">Feminist
Historiography Working Group<br>
Toronto, Saturday, 12 November 2005, 7:00-9:00 PM</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">Call
for Papers<br>
<u><br>
What Did<i> She</i>
Say? <o:p></o:p><br>
Recovering
Evidence of Women’s Theatre Discourse</u><u><o:p></o:p></u></p>
<div align="left">Major accounts of theatre history (including
histories of
theatre theory and criticism) typically include little commentary by
women
artists, theorists, critics, and historians of theatre, yet women
across the
centuries have documented in various modes and genres their ideas about
theatre.<span style=""> </span>Women’s commentary is often
embedded (and thus camouflaged) in various modes of non-dramatic
writing,
including reviews, letters, and novels, which may help to explain their
absence
from collections of dramatic criticism and theory.<br>
<br>
A standard anthology of theatrical writing, Bernard Dukore’s
<i>Dramatic Theory and Criticism</i>, includes no such commentary by
women, but
it does include both extended essays and brief excerpts from letters,
prefaces,
speeches, and popular journalism by male writers about the nature and
significance of theatre.<span style=""> </span>We can look to
similar sources—letters, diaries, novels, prologues, plays, poems,
literary
criticism, reviews, fashion columns, training programs, club minutes,
etc.—for
evidence of how women thought and wrote about theatre.<br>
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<br>
In 2005, the ASTR Feminist Historiography Working Group will focus on
documenting and analyzing commentary by women about theatre across
historical periods.<span style=""> </span>Such commentary might
consider the nature,
history, effects, and significance of theatre and the processes by
which it has
been made.<span style=""> </span>We invite proposals for brief
papers (maximum 5 pages total) consisting of a primary document
(letter,
review, diary entry, excerpt from novel, poem, play, memoir, etc.) and
an
accompanying analysis of that document as a contribution to an
insufficiently
understood history of women's thinking about theatre. <br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p>Specific questions that might be considered in relation to
particular documents include, but are not limited to, the following:<span
style=""> </span><br>
<blockquote>What does the primary document
reveal about what its author believed theatre had been, was, or could
be?
How does the document view the relation of the theatrical present to
the past
or future? How does the thinking evident in the document clarify the
author's own theatrical or dramaturgical practice, both in its own
right and in
relation to that of her precursors and/or contemporaries?<span style="">
</span>How does the document intervene in conventional
theatrical/dramaturgical practices or accounts of theatre history, and
why? Does the document memorialize a
past event or person, and if so, why is that event or person
significant to the
author of the document, given her present moment?<span style=""> </span>How
does the document conceptualize the
relation between art and life, between theatrical/dramaturgical
practice and
lived experience?<br>
</blockquote>
<div align="left">The following are some of the larger questions that
we hope
the Working Group will collectively consider through its collection and
analysis of a range of such documents:<o:p> </o:p><br>
<blockquote>If we begin to recover a body of
overlooked and/or undervalued evidence of women’s thoughtful presence
at,
involvement in, and reflection upon theatre, how does that body of
evidence
change historical narratives of theatre at various historical periods?
Does a history different from that represented in current popular and
academic
narratives of the theatre emerge when these accounts are taken
seriously?
<div align="left"> </div>
</blockquote>
<o:p></o:p>Please send proposals of no more than 250 words to both
conveners, Penny Farfan (<a href="mailto:farfan@ucalgary.ca">farfan@ucalgary.ca</a>)
and Kate Kelly (<a href="mailto:kate-kelly@tamu.edu">kate-kelly@tamu.edu</a>)
by June 1, 2005.<span style=""> </span>Complete papers,
including original documents, of no more than 5 pages will be due by
September
1 to initiate a pre-conference discussion via email.<span style=""> </span>N.B.
Our conference time has been scheduled
for Saturday Nov. 12, from 7-9 p.m.<span style=""> </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="left">-- <br>
</div>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Penny Farfan
Associate Professor of Drama and English
University of Calgary
Department of Drama
Craigie Hall D209
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary
Alberta
Canada T2N 1N4
Phone: (403) 220-6680
Fax: (403) 284-0713
E-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:farfan@ucalgary.ca">farfan@ucalgary.ca</a></pre>
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