theatre and performance studies

The Latin word, ‘Surdus’–used to translate the Arabic mathematical term, ‘asamm’–had referred to irrational numbers, those resisting, or willfully remaining deaf to, ratiocination and thus calculability. Its contemporary counterparts, the mathematical 'surd;' and the linguistic use of ‘surd’ for unvoiced consonants find a link in the Proto-Indo-European ‘*swer-’ which meant to buzz, whisper, or whistle. With the rise of contemporary calculation and the computational society of control which derives its power from bayesian modeling, the mathematical theory of communication, and algorithmic machine learning, the ability to remain inscrutible and deafening to such Capitalist ratiocination continues to be, and is an evermore, important aspect of resistance.

The family can be a place of hidden and haunted spaces, and in these spaces they bring to mind the uncanny, often moving deftly from the ordinary to the extraordinary or supernatural. Families are also notorious receptacles for trauma and are frequently explored in writing from Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espíritus/House of the Spirits to Tara Westover’s Educated.

Call for Book Chapters for Edited Volume

Performing Crisis: Interdisciplinary Insights on Identity and Existence

Deadline for Abstract Submissions has been extended to October 31, 2024

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” (Baldwin 2).

Call for Papers

ETKI: Journal of Literature, Theatre and Culture Studies

ETKI: Journal of Literature, Theatre and Culture Studies invites submissions for the fifth issue of the journal - a general issue on literature, theatre and culture studies.

Samuel Beckett’s drama may not be yet mapped as a site of carnival; nevertheless, the Beckettian dramatic ecosystem is open to a sense of the carnivalesque. In Europe and the northern Americas, the carnival tends to be understood as a secularised Christian tradition, the religious roots of which are enshrined in the epistemology of the word. Originating from the Latin carnem levāre – the removal of the flesh (OED) – the carnival used to be a festive threshold leading into the frugality and modesty of Lent. Yet, such grassroots street performances have thrived beyond this limited cultural, historical and geographical frame.

Call for Papers

Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics

SPECIAL ISSUE – Art and Imagination: Philosophical Issues

Though some have dismissed the imagination as “the junkyard of the mind,” just about all artists will vouch for the fact that the imagination is not just essential but also central to the arts. This is true not only of the creation or production of artworks, it is the case also when it comes to the reception or experience of art.

In recent decades, poetry performance has been one of the fastest growing arts practices internationally. Since movements such as Beat poetry, jazz poetry, and poetry slam have inspired performance scenes across the English-speaking world and beyond, innovative performance styles have emerged alongside new genres and styles of composition geared towards oral performance. The global reach of spoken word poetry has become highly noticeable in the arena of slam, evidenced by the diverse programmes of initiatives such as the 2005 ‘Poetry International World Slampionship’ in Rotterdam, the ‘Coupe du Monde de Poésie’ in France (since 2007), and the recently established ‘World Poetry Slam Organization’.

The Henry James Review invites essays between 1,000 and 12,500 words on any aspect of Henry James Studies and archives for a special Fall 2025 Forum issue on “Henry James and the Archive.”

 Topics could include, for example:

 • Using archives for Henry James scholarship

• Changes in how we understand the nature of the Henry James archive

• New archival sources for Henry James scholarship

• Collecting or collections of Henry James-related material(s)

• Overlooked or forgotten archives or archival research methods for Henry James scholarship

• James’s use of archives, archival concepts, and/or the archival in his fiction or non-fiction

• Henry James as archivist

Embodying the Resolution: Storytelling and Performance for Social Resilience

(A Creative Panel Session of 56th NeMLA Annual Convention| March 6-9, 2025| Philadelphia, PA)

Abstract submission link: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21022

NEMLA 2025 theme is "(R)EVOLUTION”, submission deadline (UPDATED): October 15, 2024

"The Future of the American Literary Archive" panel at NeMLA 2025 (March 6-9, Philadelphia) invites panelists to share archival discoveries in American literature while also engaging in broader methodological reflections on the state of archival research in the humanities. In the context of explaining their own archival work and/or pedagogy, panelists will discuss how archival research has been impacted—for better or for worse—by tectonic shifts in the US humanities landscape including technological developments (AI, digitization), declining undergraduate humanities enrollments, and calls for more public-facing humanities scholarship readable to a general audience.

Why Shakespeare? Why now? Why here? These important questions come up time and again in academic and performance discussions of the Bard as we grapple with the inherent tensions of studying and producing Shakespeare today. Even the encyclopedia Britannica participates in the ongoing dialogue with an entry—albeit a short one—defending “why is Shakespeare still important today?” In the midst of an ongoing (r)evolution, this roundtable seeks to address the pressing why-now-here questions as they apply to considerations of Shakespeare in all forms with a focus on adaptation, performance, and pedagogy.

“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds; what worlds make stories.”

Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble. 

Margins, an international peer-reviewed journal, is published annually by the Department of English, Gauhati University. It offers a space for the exploration of the marginal in its theoretical implications and in literature and culture through four kinds of writings: 

1. It welcomes examination of the historical and the contemporary through interdisciplinary perspectives – looking at texts in both their wider conceptual and immediate situational significance (7500 and 10,000 words). 

In 1931, Antonin Artaud envisioned a radically innovative form of theatre after witnessing a performance by a Balinese troupe at the Colonial Exposition in Paris. While this event is widely acknowledged among arts and humanities scholars, its specific details – such as the precise content of the performance and the identities of the performers – are overlooked, thus exemplifying the ambivalent nature of the circulation of performing arts from colonized and/ or marginalized regions. Throughout history, how have conflicting global power structures and unequal socio-political conditions shaped the flow, interpretation, and reception of works, artists, aesthetics and practices from the so-called peripheries in Europe and the United States?