M. Butterfly at 35

Sponsored Panel by the David Henry Hwang Society for the Comparative Drama Conference

2023 marks the 35th anniversary of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly.  We welcome  papers that engage with Hwang's Tony-winning play, the David Cronenberg 1993 film as well as the 2017 rewritten Broadway revival.   We also encourage discussion of various productions of either play.

The David Henry Hwang Society was founded in 2016 at the Comparative Drama Conference with the goal of promoting scholarly examination of Hwang’s theatrical works. Since his first breakout play, FOB, in 1980, David Henry Hwang has proven the most significant and prolific Asian American playwright to date.  From the global phenomenon of M. Butterfly and more recent successes with Yellow Face, Chinglish and Soft Power, Hwang has staged stories of the Asian American experience and explored questions of race, culture, and identity.

Papers should be 15 minutes in length, written for oral presentation, and accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience. Scholars and artists in all languages and literatures are invited to email a 250 word abstract in English to William Boles at wboles@rollins.edu by 10 October 2023. Please include paper title, author’s name, status (faculty, graduate student, other/scholar-at-large), institutional affiliation, and postal address at top left. Abstracts must present a clear argument and have an appropriate scope (usually two or fewer works).  Please send your abstract in .docx, .txt, or .rtf format.  If possible, please avoid sending a .pdf.

The Comparative Drama Conference will be held in Orlando, Florida from April 4-6, 2024.  You can find out more about the conference here:  https://blogs.rollins.edu/drama/