Call for Papers: PSFG/ATHE 2019 Emerging Scholars Panel   

The Performance Studies Focus Group (PSFG) of the Association of Theater in Higher Education (ATHE) conference invites submissions of papers for its Emerging Scholars Panel. The theme of this year’s conference, which will take place in Orlando, FL August 7-11, is “Scene Changes: Performing, Teaching, and Working through the Transitions”
The PSFG Emerging Scholars Panel is an opportunity for researchers to present their work at a major international conference at the outset of their career. All graduate students who have not yet presented at ATHE are eligible to apply. Selected emerging scholars are paired with a mentor from the field of Performance Studies who will offer critical feedback on papers in preparation for the conference. Successful applicants receive a $100 stipend as well as complimentary registration to the ATHE PSFG pre-conference.
Located at the boundaries and intersections of scholarly and artistic practice, Performance Studies theorizes and analyzes embodied practices and events, and explores the ways in which performance creates meaning and shapes social life. This year’s PSFG will develop a conversation on the theme of transition using the cultural, political and ecological backdrop of Orlando. Some questions we will consider include:

• What is the relationship between performance and the environment at different historical moments?
• How might performance be deployed as a challenge to the ambivalence surrounding climate change?
• How can we take up questions of transitional bodies? How does the paradigm of transitional bodies illuminate the processes of bodily control enacted by the state?
• How do we challenge or rethink performances of trauma, performances of testimony and witness, performances of power, and performances of fear and outrage across media practices?
• How do concepts of liminality inform our thinking about cultural and artistic formation?
   
  Submissions to the PSFG Emerging Scholars panel may engage these questions generated by the conference theme, or may address issues raised by Performance Studies more broadly. Papers across performance modes and historical periods are welcome. Topics may include: 

• Contested boundaries between performance, theater, and other art forms/disciplines
• Performance as a modality of (historical) knowledge
• Historiographical approaches to performance
• Negotiating and building identity through performance
• Situating performance in terms of race, gender, and sexuality
• The role of performance in shifting configurations of power and resistance
• Performative strategies of the avant-garde
• Conflict, confrontation, and dissensus in the performance encounter
• Intersections of performance and philosophy
• Performance within postcolonial and neocolonial contexts
• Performativity and theatricality
• Embodiment and technological culture
   
  Papers for the PSFG Emerging Scholars Panel should be formatted using MLA or Chicago style and adhere to a strict 2000-3000 word limit. The deadline for submission is Thursday, January 31, 2019. Please send completed papers (as attachments in Microsoft Word) along with a current CV to Jessi Piggott at jpiggott@stanford.edu. Successful applicants will be notified in early March 2019.