The Samuel Beckett Working Group is an evolving international community of researchers, which seeks to support the development of excellent research on Beckett’s drama and Beckett in performance. It meets everywhere at the annual IFTR conferences. We welcome postgraduate and early-career researchers, as well as faculty, independent researchers and artists. We value the participation of Beckett and non-Beckett experts alike, as both categories partake in the maintenance of a healthy interdisciplinary ecosystem.

The topic for the IFTR conference next year is "Hybridity." The Call for Papers of our group asks: What happens when Beckett’s works are considered not as autonomous texts, but as components of broader theatrical ecosystems? Where do Beckett’s plays resist hybridisation, and what does that mean? In what ways do Beckettian performative ecosystems provide a space for encounter, contamination and transformation in the twenty-first century? How do Beckettian performance practices continue to transform, experimentally, what theatre is and does?

Abstracts should be submitted via the IFTR website (https://iftr.org/) when the submission platform opens on 1 October 2026. Please note that you must renew your membership or become a member in order to submit. Papers may respond to the following themes, though submissions on any aspect of Beckett’s drama or Beckett in performance are welcome. We invite papers written in English, French, Spanish and German, but all oral presentations at the conference should be in English.

1. Cross- and interculturalism in Beckettian creative ecosystems: Beckettian theatres within and beyond Europe, with a special interest in the Arab world, the Greek- speaking world, Asia, Latin America and the francophonie
2. A multiplicity of morphing bodies in Beckettian theatres: queer, disabled, abled, prosthetic, organic, cyborg, posthuman, more-than-human, non-human bodies and identities
3. Hybridity, identity and normativity in performance: gender, race, religion, ethnicity, discourses on eugenics, political systems, theatrical or non-theatrical institutions
4. The performativity of modernist linguistic hybridity: multilingualism and neologisms; grammatical disruptions and linguistic experimentations; losses, gains and troubles in translation
5. Hybrid creative practices and readings: defying traditional theatrical genres, blending non-dramatic forms with dramatic ones, performing the non-dramatic grey canon (such as doodles and letters), remediating plays (notably via music, fine and digital arts, as well as comics)
6. Resisting and transforming performance and pedagogical ecologies through and beyond hybridity: amateur/professional, director/ensemble, performers/audiences, academic/artistic, canon/experimental, archive/live event, rehearsal/performance, local/global, foreign/domestic, centre/periphery

More information: https://iftr.org/samuel-beckett/