PSi

CFP – On Memory and Forgetting: Between Philosophy and Performance

An open call for papers for a roundtable
hosted by the PSi Performance & Philosophy working group
for PSi #17, 25-29 May 2011, Utrecht

Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred (Benjamin).

In the case of the smallest or of the greatest happiness… it is always the same thing that makes happiness happiness: the ability to forget or, expressed in more scholarly fashion, the capacity to feel unhistorically during its duration (Nietzsche).

Continental philosophy provides us with a great many conceptual resources for contemplating memory and its relation to the past, present and future:Henri Bergson’s concept of ‘involuntary memory’ and its reinvention in Deleuze’s Bergsonism; Jacques Derrida’s emphasis on the differentiating effect of memory’s immanence to perception and his interest in the work of mourning; Hélène Cixous’ ruminations on memory prompted by an excavation of herfamily photograph albums. Correlatively, the continental tradition also includes Nietzsche’s concept of ‘active forgetting’ and his affirmation of forgetfulness as a necessary means ‘to provide some silence, a “clean slate” for the unconscious, to make place for the new’.

Of course, performance too does its own kind of thinking around memory and forgetting: the images of memory provided by Beckett in Krapp’s Last Tape, Eh Joe or Not I; the emphasis on the politics of cultural memory in Heiner Muller’s work, including his claim to have written Explosion of a Memory for an audience of ghosts; Forced Entertainment’s staging of the relation between memory, loss and repetition in Exquisite Pain and Tim Etchells’ emphasis on the creative possibilities opened by forgetting in works such as in pieces.

The proposed roundtable aims to bring together these two interconnected strands of research into memory as part of the working group’s ongoing investigation into the nature of the relationship between performance and philosophy. We want to look at the points of coincidence, resonance and connection between philosophies and performances of memory, whether this occurs in the use of theatrical metaphors in philosophical discourse (as inWalter Benjamin’s vision of memory as a theatre of the past) or the staging of philosophical thinking, in the performativity of philosophy or the philosophizing of performance practice.

In an effort to emphasise discussion, all participants will be expected to submit final drafts of their papers 3 weeks before the conference. Papers will then be distributed between participants and to the audience, who will be invited to sign up for the session in advance via the PSi website. On the day of the roundtable itself, participants will not read their papers, but will be asked to give a 5 minute summary of their text before inviting comments and responses from other participants and the audience.

Please note that papers are invited from any areas of performance and philosophy and are by no means restricted to addressing the philosophical and theatrical figures cited above. In turn, please note that an acceptance of your proposal to this proposed working group session is not a guarantee of participation in the PSi conference, since we will still have to have our session accepted by the conference organizers. Finally, please do not apply for this session unless you are willing to source your own funds to attend PSi in Utrecht. The working group cannot provide funding.

If you would like to propose a paper for this session, please send a 500 word abstract, title and bio to the Chair, Laura Cull: laura.cull@northumbria.ac.ukby Monday 20th September 2010. Successful applicants will be informed by the end of September.

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE & PHILOSOPHY WORKING GROUP

Chair: Laura Cull

Founded in 2007, the PSi Performance and Philosophy working group (PSi PPWG) now meets bi-annually: first at the PSi conference, and secondly at an inter-conference meeting.

In 2009, the interconference meeting was hosted by Aberystwyth University, in the shape of the event ‘Making and Thinking: Performance and Philosophy as Participation’. For more information on this event, see: http://psi-ppwg.wikidot.com/aberystwyth-2009

In 2010, the interconference meeting was hosted by the SFB “Performing Cultures”, Freie Universität Berlin. For more information on this event, see:

http://psi.teatar.hr/721/performance-and-philosophy-symposium-april-23-24-2010/

If you or your institution would be interested in hosting an interconference meeting of the working group, please contact the Chair.

Members of the PSi PPWG

-       belong to a mailing list and receive regular updates on group activities from the Chair

-       can contribute an entry on themselves and their research interests to the members datadase, on the working group wiki, see: http://psi-ppwg.wikidot.com/member-database

-       are invited to contribute to panels and shifts curated by the PSi PPWG for PSi conferences.

As the PSi # 13 conference schedule evidenced, there are a large number of international scholars in our organization who are working with philosophy in conjunction with theatre and performance. Postgraduates, emerging scholars and established figures presented papers dealing with the ideas of a diverse range of philosophers including: Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Ranciere, Luce Irigaray, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard and Michel Foucault. This working group is proposed to encourage debate and collaboration between PSi members who have in common their engagement in philosophy as it intersects with performance studies.

The principle business of the PSi PPWG:

The working group undertakes research discussions and projects that examine connections between performance and philosophy. The group researches the nature of the relationship between philosophy and performance in a variety of contexts, such as: the use of philosophy as a methodology in Performance Studies; performance theory and practices exploring philosophical themes; philosophers’ writings on the theatre and performance; dramatic texts by philosophers.

The research questions it pursues

Performance studies scholars find discourses and conceptual frameworks in philosophy that aid their analysis of such longstanding concerns within the field as: the relation between presence and representation, body and mind, materiality and temporality, self and other, language and affectivity.

The working group pursues research questions including, but not limited to, the following:

* How might philosophy and performance relate? To what extent might performance be understood as that which puts philosophy into practice? Are there tensions between Philosophy’s tradition of abstraction and Performance Studies concern for pragmatics?
* What are the benefits and risks of the translocation of concepts from continental philosophical into the study of performance? What are the values and problems of configuring an individual philosophers’ work as a methodology for the study of performance: the Deleuzian, Derridean, Foucauldian etc.?
* How might the writing of figures from philosophy contribute to the study of performance? What might Performance Studies contribute to contemporary debates in continental philosophy?
* How have performance practitioners, past and present, engaged with philosophy? How have philosophers, past and present, responded to events in performance?
* Can philosophy be understood as performance? Can performance be understood to be doing philosophical work?

Meetings

The Performance and Philosophy working group had its first meeting at PSi # 14 in Copenhagen in August 2008.

Ongoing projects

* Create a listserve to encourage year-round communication and research discussion between members and allow them to share information regarding forthcoming events, publications, CFPs etc. concerned with performance and philosophy.
* Contribute content on the working group and its activities to a dedicated area of the existing PSi website, eg. i) represent the specific research interests of the working group’s individual members, ii) advertise forthcoming meetings and to archive documentation of past meetings, iii) house a collectively constructed performance and philosophy bibliography, iv) offer a platform for online group discussions concerned with performance and philosophy.
* Actively seek out scholars working at the conjunction of performance and philosophy in a wide range of countries in order to create a genuinely international working group.
* Investigate the possibility of appointing representatives for the working group in different international institutions with a view to organising meetings at a local level.
* Establish official connections and communication channels between the PSi performance and philosophy working group and i) the TaPRA Theatre and Philosophy working group; ii) the ATHE working group. NB: Informal connections have already been made with Dan Watt and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe (TaPRA) and Josh Abrams (ATHE). All parties have expressed support for the idea of an annual meeting of the three working groups.
* Coordinate an annual meeting between the PSi, TaPRA and ATHE performance/philosophy working groups.
* Encourage scholars working in the field of Philosophy to attend and contribute to PSi conferences and/or working group meetings.
* Work towards longer-term goals such as i) the coordination of performance and philosophy working group panels at future PSi conferences, ii) publications of research generated by working group members.

Please join our WIKI using the following link: http://psi-ppwg.wikidot.com/

For more details on how to participate please contact the Chair.