Exile and America - ASTR seminar

[yana meerzon]

The following Seminar "Exile and America" has been accepted for the ASTR 2006 conference (FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF ASTR) Hotel Allegro, Chicago  •  November 16-19, 2006. AMERICA: SOCIETY: THEATRE: RESEARCH


Exile and America

This seminar seeks to investigate dramatic and performative renderings of America as an exilic place particularly focusing on issues of language, space, and identity. It will explore the utopian myth of American dream and ways in which it has been transforming throughout the 20th century and in the light of the current political climate in the US. It intends to encourage a discussion on how the American theatre practice and scholarship in general engages a vision of SOCIETY, THEATRE and RESEARCH today as a two-way street that
simultaneously embraces and rejects the Other.

Thus, our objective is to address the problems of representation of the Other on stage and to investigate how America and American dream is imagined, challenged and theatricalised in the works of various theatre artists (playwrights, directors, actors, and stage designers). In short, the seminar proposes to discuss the exilic aspects of American theatre from the twofold perceptive: the Other seen, presented and discussed in American theatre practice and research; and the representation of America by the Other.

The three proposed themes are the focus points of the discussion, and thus we invite historical and theoretical contributions engaging various interdisciplinary approaches from the fields of sociology and theatre, anthropology and performance studies, art and film history, semiotics and theory of literature and drama.

America from the Other Shores: American Dream and its Transformations
How is the notion of American dream depicted in drama and theatre? How
have the events of the 9/11 and the current war in Iraq been altering the
mythical America? What is the status of ¡§American dream¡¨ in the light of
growing anti-Americanism and how is theatrical practice and scholarship
approaching this phenomenon?

Exiles, Outsiders, and Immigrants
How are the concepts and the figures of the Other envisioned and presented
in the works of American theatre artists and through scholarship? How are
the issues of internal exile addressed? How does American theatre and
drama deal with the relationship between center and margin, between
America and the Americas, for instance?

American Theatre in Broken English
How is America depicted through the works of recent immigrants and theatre
artists of the diaspora? How visible are immigrant artists on American
stage? How is theatrical practice and scholarship resisting the gravity of
the American melting pot?

Please note that final papers will be due to the seminar on September 15, 2006, so that they can be pre-circulated and discussed among the seminar participants before the ASTR meeting in November.

Please submit proposals via email or post by May 31, 2006:

Yana Meerzon
Assistant Professor
Department of Theatre
University of Ottawa (Canada)
135 Séraphin-Marion St. Room 304B
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 6N5 Canada
(613)562-5800 Ext.2243
yana.meerzon at uottawa.ca 

Silvija Jestrovic
Assistant Professor
Department of Theatre and Performance Studies
Warrick University 
Coventry CV4 7AL 
United Kingdom 
+ 44 (0)24 7669-7552
s.jestrovic at warwick.ac.uk 

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