Please excuse cross-postings.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">McKelvey, Patrick</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:patrick_mckelvey@brown.edu">patrick_mckelvey@brown.edu</a>></span><br>
Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 2:24 PM<br>Subject: CFP, Performing Under Pressure: Life, Labor, and Art in the Academy<br>To: <a href="mailto:sshawyer@gmail.com">sshawyer@gmail.com</a><br><br><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse">CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT<br>
<br>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX<br><br>“Performing Under Pressure”: Life, Labor, and Art in the Academy<br><br>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX<br><br>13-14 APRIL 2012, DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE ARTS AND<br>
PERFORMANCE STUDIES, BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, RI<br><br><a href="mailto:performingpressure@gmail.com" style="color:rgb(51, 51, 204)" target="_blank">performingpressure@gmail.com</a><br><br>We work here. But where is “here,” and how do we define the “work”<br>
that we do? Beginning with these questions about the corporate<br>university, “Performing Under Pressure” intends to make visible the<br>invisible work of students and scholars (when most academics don’t<br>call themselves workers). We enjoin academics and artists in the<br>
humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences to<br>think about their field and the work they do, by: paying attention to<br>what pressures are in play across class, racial, gender, and sexual<br>lines and how such performances play out in the institutional<br>
framework in which we do our work; critically reflecting on how images<br>of ourselves as students, academics, and teachers are constructed; and<br>considering how these identities remain distinct from, and are also<br>sustained by, the institution that gives rise to them.<br>
<br>Let’s attempt something like a Brechtian exposure of the university’s<br>workings; in creatively thinking about the things we do, and how they<br>are done. We’ll explore the economic basis for the university, and how<br>
it is covered over by long-held assumptions about what goes on at an<br>educational institution; it is not for nothing that Brown University’s<br>governing body is “The Corporation.” The university reflects the<br>stratifications of labor--these people pay (students in unfunded MFA<br>
and MA programs, who will leave the academy to join the “real”<br>economy) and these other people get paid (funded PhD students and<br>professors who remain in the “unreal” university economy)—even while<br>it retains the veneer of pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Or,<br>
more troubling: becomes an incubator for “real world” skills for<br>graduates who will become actors in the finance world. (The Brown<br>website advertises: “A Brown education is a catalyst for creativity<br>and entrepreneurship.”)<br>
<br>Possible topics include:<br><br>The labor—affective, immaterial, and other—of the scholar in the<br>neoliberal university<br>Artists, performers, and culture workers in the university<br>How “life” is constructed by and within the academy, with reference to<br>
race, gender, dis/ability, etc.<br>University-based arts funding practices, forms of curation, and<br>valuation schemes<br>Government and non-government sources of research funding<br>Collaborations with business and connections to the knowledge economy<br>
The global university as it participates in forms of off-shoring<br>Campus sites that reflect on real world institutions: galleries,<br>laboratories, markets, newspapers, and political forums<br><br>This two-day conference will feature keynote speakers including<br>
Nicholas Ridout (Queen Mary, University of London) and Patricia Ybarra<br>(Brown University), plenary paper sessions, forums with invited<br>speakers in a “long table” format, and performance events.<br><br>Submissions welcome from all humanities and social and hard science<br>
disciplines and approaches. We are asking for you to present your work<br>to the conference if you can also bring a discussion of the labor that<br>went into it, and of the negotiations behind it. We are looking not<br>for studies of the university per se, but papers and proposals that<br>
reflect on our own practice. Please select one of the following<br>options and email your response along with a short bio to<br><a href="mailto:performingpressure@gmail.com" style="color:rgb(51, 51, 204)" target="_blank">performingpressure@gmail.com</a>.<br>
<br>1. Papers: Please submit a 300-word abstract for a 20-minute paper<br>relating to one or more conference themes.<br><br>2. Long Table: Please submit a short (200 words or less) description<br>of your research topic(s) and a list of key terms relevant to your<br>
work.<br><br>THE DEADLINE FOR ALL ABSTRACTS AND INQUIRIES IS December 20, 2011.<br><br>Please save the dates, plan to join us, and share this announcement<br>with your colleagues and contacts.<br><br>For more information, or to watch the conference take shape in a<br>
shared planning space, direct your web browser to:<br><a href="http://performingunderpressure.wordpress.com/" style="color:rgb(51, 51, 204)" target="_blank">http://performingunderpressure.wordpress.com/</a></span><br clear="all">
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<div><br></div>-- <br>Patrick McKelvey<br>PhD Student<br>Department of Theatre and Performance Studies<br>Brown University<br>email: <a href="mailto:patrick_mckelvey@brown.edu" target="_blank">patrick_mckelvey@brown.edu</a><br>
cell: <a href="tel:%28850%29%20217-6617" value="+18502176617" target="_blank">(850) 217-6617</a><br><br>
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