[Candrama] ATHE long table invitation

[Kim Solga]

Theatre and Performance versus the “Crisis in the Humanities”: Creative Pedagogies, Neoliberal Realities (#1613)

DATE: August 3rd
TIME: 3:15 PM–4:45 PM
LOCATION: Executive Boardroom
FOCUS GROUP(S): Theatre and Social Change (TASC)

Please join us for a long table session at next week’s ATHE conference in Boston, focused on surviving - and possibly learning to thrive in? - the neoliberal academy as arts and culture workers.

What would it take to make the labour of theatre and performance teachers, scholars, and makers central rather than peripheral to academic life in the early twenty-first century? What challenges face arts academics as we struggle to do our jobs inside a system driven by measurement and “accountability” to STEM-side university priorities and pro-business governments? How might we begin to address these and find new and healthier paths forward?

We are a group of scholars and community arts practitioners based at the Central School of Speech and Drama in the UK. We are particularly keen to share our experiences and hear from American academics and practitioners about what the urgent issues are state-side. Graduate students and early career scholars are particularly welcome!

After three short provocations (abstracts below) from us, we will settle into a long table discussion sharing thoughts and perspectives on all related issues. We will be recording the session for archive purposes, and will have permission forms available for you to sign. Should you not wish to be recorded, of course we will respect your wishes — and you are welcome along nevertheless!

Hoping to see and learn from you,

Sylvan Baker, Diana Damian Martin, Rebecca Hayes Laughton, and Kat Low

PROVOCATION ABSTRACTS

Speaking from personal experience and observation, the following provocations aim to focus our long table conversations from the general to the specific. They may not cover all the issues we are keen to explore, but we hope they will help to bring the autobiographical into a discourse that is often rendered impersonal.

From Sylvan: Across the UK issues around access and identity have never been more urgent as those on the outside strive to make their voices heard. As a black UK scholar, my thoughts are not about why is this still so but rather about what UK staff of colour like me at the beginning of their careers might do in a context of precarity. Should staff as well as students in the UK  continue to ask, 'what will it take for my teachers to look like me’?

From Rebecca: The idea of natural talent is often a key factor in interview and selection processes for further studies in arts and performance.  But what if some people have had more access to skills development opportunities and consequently are able to present as "more talented"?  Gender, class, race and financial resources impact these opportunities and therefore neoliberal notions of a meritocratic academy, the ability to audition and interview fairly, need to be challenged.  Refugee and asylum seeking women in the UK sit at a nexus of these issues, issues we need to unpick if we seek to create more diverse and inclusive higher education environments.

From Kat and Diana: Whilst we hear the narrative of the difficulty of negotiating academia and parenthood/motherhood, I am not convinced how much we pay attention to the feelings and consequences of negotiating this space.  Not hearing these experiences routinely means that there is little public space to articulate these difficulties and to also move forward. This is silencing within the neoliberal context/university because of the need to demonstrate worth through your research excellence and the links this has with your academic progression (and therefore a job). Because ultimately you do not want to be seen as not coping and not being able to do your job.  And this is part of the shame and discomfort for me – because if I am talking about  not coping I seem to be saying I am not being able to do my job.  So what are the ways/means we can take to address this and what can I do to model best practice for the women who come after me?


Prof. Kim Solga
Editor, Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada<http://tricrtac.ca/en/>
Director, Program in Theatre Studies<http://www.uwo.ca/theatrestudies/>
Department of English and Writing Studies
Western University
London, ON
N6A 3K7
ksolga at uwo.ca<mailto:ksolga at uwo.ca>

Get more Kim!
A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age (Bloomsbury<https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-cultural-history-of-theatre-9781472585844/>, 2017)
Theatre & Feminism (Palgrave<https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/Theatre-and-Feminism/?K=9781137463005>, 2015)
Performance and the Global City (Palgrave<https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230361676>, 2013)
Theory for Theatre Studies: Space (Coming soon from Bloomsbury!)

Visit me at my teaching blog:
http://theactivistclassroom.wordpress.com





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