Call for Papers: Special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review on 'The Cultural Politics of the Olympics: Performing Global Britishness'

[Keren Zaiontz]

Call for Proposals

Contemporary Theatre Review (Autumn 2013)
Special Issue – “The Cultural Politics of the Olympics: Performing  
Global Britishness”
Proposal Deadline: 15 July 2012
Special Issue Editors: Jen Harvie and Keren Zaiontz

The lead up to the 2012 London Olympic Games has seen critics and  
artists challenge the official narratives of positive legacy that  
circulate around the Games. The work of writer and walker Iain  
Sinclair (Ghost Milk), sociologists John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson  
(editors, Watching the Olympics: Politics, Power and Representation,  
2011) and artist Neville Gabie (Olympic artist-in-residence)  
demonstrates – if proof were needed – that cultural representation is  
more than a prop for state-sponsored aspirations; it also provides  
opportunities to interrogate and challenge official narratives, modes  
of address and assumptions, and to propose alternative priorities.  
This issue of Contemporary Theatre Review joins this critical dialogue  
and examines the role of cultural performance in hosting and staging  
the 2012 London Olympic Games.

We particularly welcome submissions that focus on events sponsored by  
the London Cultural Olympiad (LCO), a four-year program that  
culminates with the London 2012 Festival held during the Summer Games.  
Situated in high streets, galleries and theatres, the LCO involves the  
mass participation of communities in public art events that showcase  
Britain’s cultural diversity and national art to UK and global  
audiences. We invite scholars and artists to examine the LCO’s various  
projects and the ways that positive legacy, and other core cultural  
policies, are scripted into these events and realised – or not – in  
them. We are interested to explore national projects that rely on a  
marriage of expert and volunteer labour to fulfil the mandate of the  
artwork. Events such as the opening and closing ceremonies, Artists  
Taking the Lead, Big Dance, the World Shakespeare Festival and the  
LIFT Festival depend on a variety of expertise, and publics, to stage  
these programmes. Each of these publics – be they arts workers,  
spectators, or volunteers – is interpellated to care about a massively  
scaled cultural event. To donate objects, to share their stories and  
to dance in the streets is not only a badge of participation, but  
citizenship. These collective artistic acts encompass the entire  
nation as Cultural Olympiad events are staged throughout the UK. Does  
a UK resident qualify as a ‘bad’ citizen if she chooses to stay at  
home or opt out of visible protocols of national participation? Does a  
UK artist qualify as unpatriotic if she makes an artwork that does not  
provoke citizens to ‘care’ about either the Olympic Games or the  
nation? What role does art play in making us feel nationalist  
sentiment or, alternatively, in facilitating the greatest possible  
distance from those feelings?

In addition to these questions we seek submissions that engage with  
some of the following issues and themes:

Affect management and the role of emotion in generating a particular  
response to the nation
The role of cultural policy in crafting narratives of legacy, youth  
involvement, and mass participation in the Cultural Olympiad
The structure and organisation of the Cultural Olympiad and London  
2012 Festival
Events and programs featured as part of the London 2012 Festival (this  
includes projects funded well outside the limits of the London host  
boroughs)
Partnerships and cultural policies between UK arts councils and LOCOG  
or the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games
The role of branding events in the Cultural Olympiad as markers of  
national and international excellence
The role of state commissioned public art projects (i.e., Arcelor  
Mittal Orbit) as well as official iconography (i.e., London 2012 logo)  
and even iconic mascots (i.e., Wenlock and Mandeville) in providing a  
visual identity for the Games
The relationship of the London Cultural Olympiad to previous and  
future Olympic cultural programmes
The relationship of the Cultural Olympiad to other events in the UK in  
and around 2012, such as the Jubilee celebrations and Occupy London

The issue does aim to focus on art activities related to the Games and  
to cultural programming around the Games (e.g. the opening and closing  
ceremonies), however we also welcome analysis of particular sports,  
sports events, sportspeople and sports audiences in contributing to  
the cultural and political meanings cultivated by the Games.

This special issue will include a range of scholarly essays, visual  
work, artist responses and interviews that explore these scenes of  
national unity and the ways in which they are used to critique and  
mythologise the nation.

Send a 250-word abstract proposal and academic bio by 15 July 2012 to  
Jen Harvie (j.harvie at qmul.ac.uk) and Keren Zaiontz (keren.zaiontz at roehampton.ac.uk 
).  We aim to respond in August and draft articles will be due in  
December 2012.
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