Purdue University Literary, Interdisciplinary, Theory, and Culture Organization Symposium, March 3-4, 2023.

POWER, PERFORMANCE, & PLAY

The Literary, Interdisciplinary, Theory, and Cultural Studies Organization (LITCO) at Purdue University invites participants for our third annual symposium, “Power, Performance, & Play.” We are interested in scholarly projects that discuss representations of the relationships between power, performance, and play, as well as the pertinence of these topics to continued work in literary and cultural studies. In addition to the approaches listed below, projects may investigate questions such as, “How does power manifest in texts, institutions, cultures, theories, spaces, or places? What are the scholarly and/or cultural values of performance and play? How do selected performances reinforce or challenge established power structures? How do theories or demonstrations of play challenge or disrupt embodiments of power structures?”

We encourage proposals that interpret our theme creatively. Possible approaches include: 

• Adaptation studies

• American studies

• Book studies, history of the book, and material culture

• Comparative literature

• Creative writings that engage with the symposium theme

• Representations of the symposium theme in literary texts (poetry, prose, drama, graphic novels, life writing, etc.)

• Performance and play in the lives of academics

• Critical identity studies (including but not limited to Black, Disability, and Gender and Sexuality theories) 

• Digital Humanities

• Ecocritique and sustainability

• Interdisciplinarity

• Liminality and/or alterity

• Local, national, and/or global geographies

• Migration Studies, Diaspora Studies, and/or Border Studies

• Multilingual literatures

• Narrative form and/or storyworlds

• Pedagogy on performance and play

• Performance studies

• Political and social policy

• Reception, adaptation, remediation, and/or fandom

• Game studies

• Film and media studies

This symposium will take place virtually through Zoom on Friday, March 3 – Saturday, March 4, 2023. 

We accept proposals in the following formats:

• an individual paper presentation 

• a pre-constituted panel of 3-4 papers

• a pre-constituted round table

• a workshop related to the conference theme

• a reading of relevant creative work

Although this symposium has been designed for emerging scholars, all are welcome to submit. To ensure that this event is accessible and welcoming for emerging scholars, there is no registration fee. All participants are also invited to the symposium’s virtual Keynote, which will be delivered by Dr. Helen Hunt (Associate Professor of English at Tennessee Technological University).

Please send abstract proposals of up to 200 words as well as a brief bio (up to 100 words) to litcopurdue@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is Friday, January 20, 2023.