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-------- Original Message -------- Subject: CFP: ASTR 2011 Conference, Economies of Medieval Performance Culture Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 16:49:19 -0400 From: Lofton L Durham, III <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Hello everyone, apologies for cross-posting! American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference Nov. 17-20, 2011 Montreal, Canada CFP: Working Group on THE ECONOMIES OF MEDIEVAL PERFORMANCE CULTURE Convener: Lofton L. Durham, Western Michigan University This working group is founded on the idea that the thousand years between the Roman theatre and Shakespeare’s stage was an extraordinarily fertile time in the history of Western performance. Pre-dating the commercial playhouse and unbound by its limits, theatre of this period was – itself – a highly valued medium of exchange. In and through performance, individuals and groups articulated identities, brokered communal bonds, communicated values, and exchanged ideas, while cultures intermingled in the overlapping and interconnected spheres – economies – of the city, court, university, and church. Paradoxically, what remains of the omnipresent and living theatrical traditions that characterized this era are documentary remnants that incompletely attest to the vitality of medieval performance culture. Yet new approaches to these remnants, developed over the last decade, seek to rejuvenate the study of medieval performance culture and revise some of theatre scholarship's received assumptions about the period. These approaches, in many cases, use the same tools, points of view, and vocabulary as contemporary performance studies, focusing on notions of festivity, the theatrical use of power, and the performance of identity. The goal of this ongoing ASTR group is to bring together various theoretical perspectives and broad definitions of evidence, in order to investigate the circulation of ideas in medieval performance culture, the representation of such ideas as performances, the documentation of these performances, and the utilization and transmission of these documents, then and now. Of particular interest for the session are: • new primary sources or alternate applications of evidence; • new or revised methodologies for approaching medieval performance practices; and • theoretical applications that draw connections among disparate cultural phenomena, illuminate new bodies of evidence, and/or alter conventional understandings of medieval performance, theatre, and drama. Session Format and Guidelines Convener will group papers in clusters. Each member of the cluster will be responsible for reading all papers in the cluster and conducting a discussion via email about shared points of connection, valences of critical controversy, and related topics. At the conference, the convener will organize a discussion surrounding three or four major questions or themes. Time for panel discussion will be limited on each question or theme, so that audience members may have a chance to participate in the discussion. Submissions Please send a 200-word abstract and a brief bio to Lofton L. Durham at [log in to unmask] by Monday, May 30th. Please feel free to get in touch ahead of the deadline with any questions that you may have. Please see http://www.astr.org/conference/working-sessions-guidelines for information on the responsibilities of ASTR Working Session participants.