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CFP: ATHE Performance Studies Focus Group Emerging Scholars Panel

The Performance Studies Focus Group at the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference invites submissions of papers for its Emerging Scholars' Panel. The theme of the conference is "Theatre Alive: Theater, Media, and Survival," and it takes place at the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, CA, August 3-6, 2010.

The PSFG Emerging Scholars' Panel represents an opportunity for researchers to present their work at a major international conference for the first time. Selected Emerging Scholars will be paired with a mentor from the field of Performance Studies who will offer critical feedback on submitted papers in order to help prepare them for presentation at the conference. ATHE PSFG
will also provide successful applicants with complimentary registration to the ATHE PSFG Pre-Conference.

Performance Studies locates itself at the boundaries and intersections of scholarly and artistic practice. It embraces aesthetic and academic interdisciplinarity, as well as the challenges, risks, and innovations that are part of such inclusionary practices. Performance also acts as a critical
model for theorizing cultural and social action, providing a lens and practice through which technological and cultural innovations can be processed. In moments of global crisis and catastrophe, what strategies can the field of Performance Studies deploy to ensure its own survival and the survival of performance in general? How do performance-based innovations provoke new approaches to the circulation and exchange of information in our increasingly mediatized world? How do the tensions between media and performance contribute meaningfully to contemporary dialogues surrounding human survival in the twenty-first century? What can a focus on media and survival reveal about disciplinary and aesthetic habits? What does such a focus risk obscuring or leaving out?

Submissions to the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel might engage these disciplinary questions, or a range of others around the conference theme. Papers across performance modes and historical periods are welcomed. Topics might include:

- contested boundaries between performance, theatre and other artforms
- emergent technologies in performance
- performance and (economic, environmental, humanitarian, etc.) catastrophe
- historiographical approaches to performance
- negotiating/ building identity in performance
- survival and the so-called death of the avant-garde
- performances that threaten the survival of the physical body
- conflict and confrontation in the performance encounter
- performativity and theatricality
- the relationships between performance and philosophy
- performance, emotion and affect
- complexity, ambiguity and paradox in performance
- performance as debate, negotiation, breakdown

Papers for the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel should be 8-10 pages in length (double-spaced). The deadline for submission is Saturday 13 February 2010. Please send completed papers (as attachments in Microsoft Word), with institutional affiliation and contact information, to Joseph Cermatori at jpc2143@columbia.edu. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of March 2009.

Please contact Joseph with any other questions regarding the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel at the email address above.