CFP: North American Drama Conference in Brussels

[Caroline De Wagter]

*Second Circular

CALL FOR PAPERS*

*"Signatures of the Past: Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North
American Drama" *

*An international conference hosted by the Department of Languages &
Literatures and the Center for Canadian Studies of the University of
Brussels*
*Brussels, Belgium, April 25-28, 2007*

In the last two decades or so, the Anglophone North-American stage has
witnessed the emergence of significant dramatic works interrogating the
preservation of cultural memory. In their provocative and innovative
theatrical works, a sizeable number of English Canadian and American
playwrights contest standardizing and globalizing patterns of thoughts.
These authors not only challenge the classic European theatrical aesthetic,
but they also criticize the Canadian and American multicultural dream.
Recurring themes such as exile, fragmentation of the self, stereotyped
notions of authenticity, attest to a willingness to reject the simplistic
binarism of Western hegemony while celebrating cultural and aesthetic
heterogeneity. Through theatre, these writers invite us to re-think the
issue of cultural memory in order to conceive new identities shaped
according to shared values respecting local identities and traditions.

The Anglophone North-American focus of this conference will seek to offer a
comparative cross-cultural approach of contemporary English Canadian and
American theatrical production at the turn of the 21st century. Moreover, as
theatre often mirrors social and cultural conflicts, this contrastive
approach will hopefully illuminate differences and/or similarities between
the two countries as far as identity building, issues of nation and
conception of multicultural models are concerned. Ultimately, this
particular vantage point will enable participants to determine more
accurately the special positioning of contemporary North-American theatre in
the wider context of modern Anglophone drama.

*Keynote lecturers will include Professor Harry Elam (Stanford University),
Professor Karen Shimakawa (Tisch School of the Arts), Professor Ric Knowles
(University of Guelph), Professor Craig Walker (Queen's University), Ms
Cherrie Moraga (Chicana playwright), Mr Guillermo Verdecchia (Latino
Canadian playwright).*

The conference will consist of a series of plenary lectures by noted
scholars and playwrights as well as a number of parallel paper sessions.
20-minute paper proposals are therefore welcome on a variety of topics
related to the general theme. Presentations dealing with individual
dramatists, theory or production aspects in contemporary Anglophone North
America (U.S. and/or English Canada) will be most welcome, particularly as
they relate to cultural memory issues. Papers need not provide systematic
comparisons between U.S. and Canadian drama, although contrastive
considerations are encouraged, whenever possible. Conference participants
are therefore invited to consider the following suggestions for paper
proposals, either in a U.S. and/or English Canadian context (this list is by
no means exhaustive):

-- How does Anglophone North-American theatre redefine cultural memory at
the turn of the 21st century? Where is it located? How can we define
cultural memory within multi-ethnic North American societies? How can local
and national identities be preserved in the dramatic text?
-- How does Anglophone North-American drama interpret the link between
cultural and collective memory? How does a so-called collective memory
interact with individual representations in drama?
-- In what sense do contemporary Anglophone North-American theatrical
productions have an impact on the building and preservation of cultural
memory?
-- How do contemporary theatrical productions in North-America illuminate
the increasing interdisciplinarity between fields such as history, memory
and theatre?
-- In what way(s) does Anglophone North American theatre highlight the
historical construction of particular identities?
-- Is cultural memory built, imagined, or perpetuated in different ways in
English Canadian and American dramatic texts?
-- As �a mirror to society,� how does theatre participate in the shaping of
the concepts of identity and nation, both in English Canada and the U.S.?

250-word abstracts should be submitted to the *conference convenors, Prof.
Marc Maufort and Ms. Caroline De Wagter, before November 1, 2006*
(mmaufort at ulb.ac.beand
caroline.dewagter at gmail.com). Acceptance of proposals will be notified by
December 1, 2006, so as to allow the authors of selected submissions to
apply for travel funding from their universities in due course.

A selection of papers presented at the conference will be published in the
"Dramaturgies" book series edited by Professor Marc Maufort (published by
P.I.E.-Peter Lang).
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20060905/16b1e3a5/attachment.html>