Reminder: CFP for MATC Theatre History Symposium

[Ann Haugo]

Querying Difference in Theatre History
Theatre History Symposium
2006 Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC)
http://www.wiu.edu/matc/

Allerton-Crowne Plaza Hotel, Chicago
March 2-5, 2006

Call for Papers Deadline:  December 1, 2005

All-Conference Keynote (Saturday, March 4):  Harry J. Elam, Jr.
Professor Elam is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities and a 
Professor of Drama, Director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts 
and Director of the Committee on Black Performing Arts at Stanford 
University.  His publications include Taking it to the Streets: The 
Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka (University of 
Michigan Press) and The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson 
(University of Michigan Press), as well as numerous edited works and 
juried articles.

Theatre History Symposium Respondent: Don B. Wilmeth
Professor Wilmeth is the Asa Messer Emeritus professor of Brown 
University’s departments of English and Theatre.  He is a co-editor of 
the Cambridge History of American Theatre and is currently Series 
Editor of Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History and 
Culture.  His publications include George Frederick Cooke: Machiavel of 
the Stage (Greenwood) and The Language of American Popular 
Entertainment (Greenwood), as well as several other books, edited 
works, and juried articles.

The Theatre History Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference 
seeks conference-length papers that examine constructions and 
contestations of difference in the history of theatre and performance.  
To “query” implies both an expression of doubt as well as a 
question—that is, an opening for critical dialogue that generates new 
knowledge as often as it responds to received knowledges.  We therefore 
invite proposals that move beyond the repetition of received categories 
of difference in theatre history and instead probe the boundaries and 
intersections of seemingly disparate identity formations.  We also 
encourage papers that incorporate discursive modes that challenge 
traditional notions of the archive and the text, to give voice to the 
lived pasts of historically disenfranchised groups and individuals 
whose pasts have often gone unrecorded in academic spaces.  Please note 
that while “difference” may immediately conjure issues of race, 
ethnicity, gender, and/or sexuality, we will welcome proposals that 
examine differences more broadly construed:  nationalisms, economic 
gradations, and so forth.

Papers might address one or more of the following issues, though 
proposals are not limited to these categories:
•	Emerging critiques of “multiculturalism” and alternative discourses 
(“trans-“ or “interculturalism”)
•	Questions of theatre and “otherness”
•	Indigenous theatre and performance
•	Contact and border zones
•	Historic dilemmas in the practice of theatre (e.g., “color-blind” vs. 
race-specific casting)
•	Postcolonial and decolonial representations of racial/ethnic 
identity, national identity, etc.
•	Historiographic methods for researching and writing about 
historically disenfranchised groups and/or individuals.
•	Case-studies and analyses of performance of difference
•	Issues of difference and theatre in the American Midwest.

Abstracts must be received by December 1, 2005. Please limit abstracts 
to 250 words.  Proposals for research groups and full panels (of three 
related papers) are also welcome. Contact Co-Chairs for details.

Robert A. Schanke Research Award: Prospective presenters who are 
interested in entering the competition for the Robert A. Schanke 
Research Award should indicate this on their abstract.  The Robert A. 
Schanke Research Award is given annually to an untenured faculty 
presenter of the Theatre History Symposium and carries a cash award of 
$500 as well as subsequent publication of the paper in Theatre History 
Studies, the journal of the Mid-America Theatre Conference.
(over)

Email Abstracts as Word documents to both Theatre History Symposium 
co-chairs at the following addresses:

Ann Haugo
Illinois State University
ahaugo at ilstu.edu

Scott Magelssen
Augustana College
thmagelssen at augustana.edu

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME, TITLE (identifying whether you are faculty, 
student, or independent scholar) and ACADEMIC AFFILIATION with your 
Abstract.

Works-in-progress workshops

This year the Theatre History Symposium is pleased to offer a 
works-in-progress for scholars with articles in progress as well as a 
session for scholars who are preparing book proposals.

If you have an article you are preparing to submit for publication and 
would like critical feedback and advice from your peers as well as a 
journal editor, please prepare a timeline for completion and  a 
one-page abstract of the work in progress.  Current and former journal 
editors facilitating this workshop include Jonathan Chambers, Theatre 
Topics; Rhona Justice-Malloy, Theatre History Studies; and Harry Elam, 
former editor, Theatre Journal. Send proposals for the articles to both 
co-chairs at the addresses above.  Submissions due December 1, 2005.

If you are working on a book proposal and would like to attend the 
session on preparing book proposals, please watch the conference 
website (http://www.wiu.edu/matc/) for more details.  Facilitators for 
this session will be Robert Schanke, Series Editor, Theatre in the 
Americas, for Southern Illinois University Press, and Don B. Wilmeth, 
Series Editor, Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History and 
Culture, for Palgrave Macmillan and former Series Editor, Studies in 
American Theatre and Drama, for Cambridge University Press.

Ann Haugo
Assistant Professor
School of Theatre
Campus Box 5700
Illinois State University
Normal IL 61790

(309) 438-3955
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