Call for Papers:
American Theatre and Drama Society Sessions at the American Literature Association 21st Annual Conference

Conference Dates: May 27-30, 2010
Location: San Francisco, CA (Hyatt Regency Embarcadero Ctr)
Website: www.americanliterature.org
Deadline for Proposals submitted to ATDS: January 15, 2010
EMAIL proposals to: Dr. Jim Cherry (cherryj@wabash.edu)

THEME for ATDS sessions for 2010:

Intertextual Exchanges

American theatre and drama continually references ongoing "conversations" taking place within and outside the playhouse. Those conversations may be about race, gender,class, ethnicity, politics, religion, reform, social movements, etc. Inevitably texts beyond the playhouse – whether literary, visual, or oral – shape not only the plays themselves, but the audience's understanding of what they are seeing onstage. The theatre also generates its own conversations, as its multiple texts intersect with the surrounding culture.

The American Theatre and Drama Society invites papers or panels that investigate the ways in which American dramatic texts (imaginging "texts" in the broadest possible way) have engaged with a range of literary, visual, or oral texts/traditions outside the playhouse. Are there features of these "intertextual exchanges" that appear uniquely American (and if so, what might that suggest about the development of our culture)? How have playwrights, performers, or pundits used moments of intertextual exchange in the theatre to address a specific issue? How do scholars of American theatre uncover these exchanges when texts move out of circulation? These are just some of the many questions we invite ATDS members and affiliates of ATDS to explore at this conference.

• Please email 500-word abstracts to: Dr. Jim Cherry (cherryj@wabash.edu), by January 15, 2010

• Please include a brief (2-3 sentence) bio, as well as your contact information with your submission. If you are submitting a panel, please include brief bios for your panelists as well.

• You may propose either individual papers, or a panel. If you are proposing a panel, please be sure to do the following: provide a title for your panel; identify the panel leader/contact person; and please provide both individual paper abstracts, as well as a 2-3 sentence description for the panel.