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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tw
Cen MT";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Greetings!
</span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times
New Roman""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tw
Cen MT";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman""><br>
Please consider applying to the working group I'm convening
with Dr. Joanne
Zerdy for this year's American Society of Theatre Research
conference in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Nashville</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">Tennessee</st1:state></st1:place>
in November. </span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">____________________________________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">Objects
and Things: The
Histories of Theatrical Actants<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">Working
Group at the American
Society of Theatre History <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">Convened
by
Marlis Schweitzer, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename
w:st="on">York</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>
(<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:schweit@yorku.ca">schweit@yorku.ca</a>) and Joanne Zerdy, Penn State Erie
(<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:j.zerdy@gmail.com">j.zerdy@gmail.com</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">We
are keen to explore a “remembrance of <i
style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">things</i>
past,” to chart the on- and offstage lives of the things that
comprise,
support, and enact theatrical performances (e.g. props,
puppets, design
elements, venue architectures, texts, transportation vehicles,
etc.). By
adopting a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">thingcentric
</i>perspective,
outlined by political theorist Jane Bennett and social
scientists working in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">actor-network
theory </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">
object-oriented ontology</i>, we aim to
rethink theatre histories from the perspective of such things.
We understand
physical materials not as inert human possessions but instead
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">actants</i>, with
particular frequencies,
energies, and potentials to affect the human and nonhuman
worlds in which they
exist. This group seeks to build on extant performance and
theatre studies
scholarship that foregrounds the interdependence of organisms,
objects, physical
forces, ideas, and social practices. With this in mind, we
invite performance
and theatre practitioners and scholars to consider the
contours of their work
in terms of the “vibrant matter” of theatrical things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT""><span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Papers might address the
following questions:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">How
do things perform? What kinds of agencies, energies, and
directions do they
enact in theatre in the past and present?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">What
new
or overlooked theatre history narratives might emerge from a <i
style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">thingcentric </i>approach?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">What
theoretical
frameworks and methodologies do theatre and performance
scholars
employ when they look at things? How might we begin to map the
different
genealogies that inform <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">thingcentric
</i>scholarship
today?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">How
do theatrical things direct our critical and creative
attention toward, away
from, and within archival research?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">How
do animate and inanimate objects relate to one another during
and after live
performance events (i.e. when placed on a props table, in a
dressing room, in
stock, or in a site-specific venue)? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">Can
commodified objects resist such economic classification and
use? If so, how?
Where? When? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">How
might a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">thingcentric</i>
perceptive alter
our understandings and practices of collaboration, multimedia
performance, and
interdisciplinarity in theatre?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1
lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span
style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times
New Roman"">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">What
can
a theatrical object’s circulation teach us about the movements
of ideas,
languages, and bodies in a specific historical time and place?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">Session
Format:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT"">We
invite 500-word proposals that include an abstract for your
ASTR paper
submission as well as its relation to your broader creative
and/or scholarly
work. Include full contact information and organizational
affiliation (if any)
on both your proposal and your email – and send your proposal
to both conveners
by May 31, 2012. Following the selection of participants,
conveners will
generate initial discussion questions and a bibliography of
sources with which
participants will be expected to engage. Full 10-12-page
papers will be
submitted to the conveners by September 30, 2012. Smaller
groups will be
assigned and expected to interact with one another (through
email, phone,
and/or Skype) before the ASTR meeting in November. Conveners
will distribute a
set of discussion questions and/or a working session agenda by
late October. We
also plan to coordinate a follow-up discussion online,
initiated by questions
devised by the conveners from our meeting in <st1:city
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nashville</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Tw Cen MT""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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