<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:14pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">21 Century Performance and Research</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><br></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Annual
Conference hosted by </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">the
School of Performing Arts (University of Malta)</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">9-11
March 2016</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Call
for Proposals </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Keynote
Speakers:</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><br></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Prof.
Christopher Balme, <span style="background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial">Institut für
Theaterwissenschaft, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Munich)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Prof.
Sarah Whatley, Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Prof.
Jonathan Stock, <span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial">School of Music and
Theatre</span>, University College Cork </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">The
School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta will be holding its third
Annual Conference in March 2016, on the theme of <b>21 Century Performance and Research</b>. The conference will contribute to the
creative imagining of the developing field of 21 Century Studies, by locating
performance as a space of investigative research and practice that responds to
the challenges marking the twenty-first century.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Already
at this early stage, the twenty-first century is exhibiting a series of
characteristic pointers on which future scenarios can be envisaged. Digital technology, for long the exclusive
domain of specialists, now permeates everyday life where websites, blogs, and
social media highlight and theatricalise even the most basic and seemingly
inconsequential behavioural acts. Knowledge and its creation, traditionally
seen as the very <span style="background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial">raison d’être</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:9.5pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">of universities, is treated
less as the imparting of formal and well-defined information and more as a
lived experience that mutates into different materialities and their consequent
phenomenologies. A difficult economic scenario is still being experienced</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Bookman Old Style',serif">,
</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">while globalisation and the widespread movement of
people contrast with conventional conceptions of what constitutes and functions
as communities. Such considerations are at the heart of this call and, building
on the success of previous years, the conference will locate performance as a
point of intersection between disciplines in a way that contributes to current
debates on the use of interdisciplinarity as a creative and analytic research
strategy for the twenty-first century. Moreover, the conference will not limit
its enquiries to the contemporary world, by recognising that current issues and
challenges often have roots in the recent and not-so recent past. Knowledge of
our political, social, economic, and cultural histories add to the
understanding of today’s world and those of tomorrow. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Presentations
exploring (but not limited to) the following questions and themes are,
therefore, being invited: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">How is performance
rearticulated in the twenty-first century? Which forces impinge on performance
research and practice? </span></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Which academic fields are
involved in defining 21 Century Studies, and how do they relate to performance
in general and the performing arts in particular?</span></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">How do the performing
arts reflect (or not) twenty-first-century issues pertaining to the
environment, migration, health, politics, etc.?</span></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">How do late
twentieth-century performance phenomena mutate in the twenty-first?</span></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Twenty-first-century
theoretical applications (e.g. critical posthumanism, postphenomenology,
technoscience studies, and cognitive science) to theatre and performance
practice and research;</span></p>
<p class="" style="margin-left:18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Addressing historical and
historiographical research from twenty-first-century perspectives; </span></p>
<p class="" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Future challenges to the
fields of performance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Abstracts
of a maximum of 300 words should be submitted by the <b>15 January 2016</b> to Dr Stefan Aquilina (<b><a href="mailto:stefan.aquilina@um.edu.mt">stefan.aquilina@um.edu.mt</a></b>), Director of Research of the School of
Performing Arts and conference convener. Acceptance will be confirmed in early
February. Kindly include a brief bionote and any technical equipment you might
need. Primarily, the conference will take the form of conventional 15-20
minutes presentations, but presenters wishing to suggest </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">practice
as research contributions or other forms of practical work are also invited to
contact the conference convener.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Dr Stefan Aquilina</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Lecturer, Department
of Theatre Studies</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Director of Research,
School of Performing Arts</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">University of Malta</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:12pt">Tel: 00356 2340 2989</span> </span></p><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small"><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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