Call for Abstracts – SETC Theatre Symposium – Submission Deadline: January 5, 2018

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SETC Theatre Symposium Volume 27

“Theatre and Embodiment”

DATES: April 13-15, 2018

LOCATION: Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA

At the heart of the theatrical act is the simultaneous live presence of the actor and the audience. Given primacy of bodies in and to the theatrical act, how do we understand those bodies as communicating meaning? How do bodies understand themselves as operating within the theatrical or performative context? The 2018 Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) Theatre Symposium will focus on the interplay between theatre and embodiment. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • The relationship of the actor’s body to space, staging, costume, and other production elements
  • The relationship of the audience’s body(s) to performance and performance spaces
  • The embodiment of socio-cultural ideas (gender, race, class, et. al.) in theatre
  • The relationship of the body to the play text
  • Actor-training via bodily learning
  • Systems of physical/theatrical expression, both historical and contemporary
  • The overlap of contemporary bodies and historical texts on stage
  • Historical uses of the body/bodies on stage
  • Theories of the body/embodiment as they relate to performance and performance practice
  • The actor’s body in relation to the character’s body
  • Cognitive approaches to embodied performance

Keynote speaker Dr. Rhonda Blair will present a central address on the topic, and will also provide a conference response. Dr. Blair is a Professor of Theatre at Southern Methodist University; her work includes 2016’s Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies, and has appeared in Theatre Topics, TDR, and the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, among others. Selected papers presented at the conference will be presented in Volume 27 of SETC’s annual Theatre Symposium journal. The conference fee of $150 includes registration, conference materials, selected meals, and coffee/snack service during the event.

Please send maximum one-page abstracts by January 5, 2018 to Sarah McCarroll, Editor, at smccarroll@georgiasouthern.edu. Please use “LastName TS Abstract” as your subject line. Abstracts should include complete contact information (snail mail, email, phone).

Published by dusesociety

Every theatrical ghost has a story. I was a famous actress, in my time, even Chekhov said so. I had many love affairs, with actors and dancers and playwrights. Pneumonia met me at Hotel Schenley. I live on in William Pitt Union, and in the Cathedral of Learning. The Duse Society remembers me. The name marks the graduate organization for Masters and Doctoral students of Theatre History and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

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