The submission deadline for this call has been extended to December 15, 2012.

The Duse Society—the graduate student organization of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Theatre Arts—is hosting a one-day, interdisciplinary conference, Acts of Asylum. This conference coincides with the opening performance of the University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre's original, devised play City of Asylum Onstage. The conference will be held on April 5, 2013.

City of Asylum Onstage endeavors to encourage public discourse about civil liberties and censorship, increase visibility and compassion for refugee populations, and expose the obstacles faced by asylum seekers. It tells the story of the lives and works of writers who have participated in the refugee writer-in-residence program, City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. To date, these writers include: Huang Xiang (China), Khet Mar (Burma), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Israel Centano (Venezuela).

We are soliciting 250 word abstracts for a wide range of humanities based, academic papers as well as practice-based research or installations on the themes of asylum, immigration, censorship, civil liberties, human rights, and the global theatre that contains its citizens in pursuit of these acts of asylum. Topics may also include geographic regions and artists unspecified by City of Asylum Onstage.

A short list of suggested topics includes (but is not limited to):

Dramaturgy of asylum
Feminism and asylum
Grassroots theatre
Activist performance
Human rights advocacy
Group performances or the performance of groups
Art/policy intersections
NGO operations
Borders: geographic, political, social
Migrations and movements
Interrogations of the refugee body
Spaces and places of asylum

Please submit to abstracts or any questions to dusesociety@gmail.com by December 15, 2012. Please include name, address, and institutional affiliation at the top of your abstract. Please also indicate if you would be interested in tickets for the performance of City of Asylum Onstage following the conference.