CALL FOR PAPERS
TEXTUAL PRaCTICE AND THEATRICAL LABOR:
SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
1997 Ohio Shakespeare Conference
Department of English
Ohio State University
Columbus OH
May 16-18, 1997
Featured Speakers:
Stephen Orgel (Stanford University)
Leah Marcus (University of Texas, Austin)
Jeff Masten (Harvard University)
Douglas Bruster (University of Texas, San Antonio)
The 1997 Ohio Shakespeare Conference invites paper and session proposals on
any aspect of the business of the theater in Shakespeare's lifetime, from
reexaminations of textual and editing problems, to the material and
economic conditions within which dramatic scripts, texts and performances
were produced and consumed in the many transactions that occured among the
interested parties: consumer, player, patron, printing house, playhouse,
playwright.
The conference seeks new research on, and new conceptualizations of,
some of the oldest critical and historical questions concerning early
modern theater: What economic, ideological, and phenomenological structures
shaped and were shaped by the performance of dramatic and theatrical work?
How do such structures affect textual and theatrical production and
reproduction? What bearing do such concerns have on questions of
topicality, influence, didacticism, patronage, or the evolution of dramatic
tastes and genres?
While Shakespeare will undoubtedly figure prominently, the conference
aims at somewhat broader coverage. Work on Shakespeare's contemporaries in
the theater, therefore, as well on Shakespeare's collaborative work, is
encouraged. Suitable panel and paper topics include, but are not limited
to:
** acting as labor * "playhouse interpolations" and the production of
meaning * textual variants and the economics of revision * sites and scenes
of dramatic composition * collaborative authorship * acting as action *
text v. work * work v. labor * work and play * script as work product * the
cultural work of the theater * performance as artifact * employment
contracts * entrepreneurship * contractual and theatrical performances *
promises * wagers * joint stock companies and corporate
personality * professional competence and incompetence * expertise and
training * divisions of labor in theatrical practice, and in dramatic
representation * material phenomenologies of the theater * represented time
and the time it takes to represent it * acting, identity and alienation *
consumption (e.g., playgoing) as work * dramatic representations of
economic relationships * pirates and "dramatic piracy" * acting
and ownership * censorship and economics * economics and/of influence **
For more information, or to submit abstracts for 20-minute presentations,
or proposals for sessions (deadline: December 20, 1996), contact:
Luke Wilson or Chris Highley
Department of English
Ohio State University
164 W. 17th Ave
Columbus OH 43210-1370
voice: 614-292-6065
fax: 614-292-7816
email: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
____________________________________________________________________
Luke Wilson * Assistant Professor * Department of English *
Ohio State University * 164 West 17th Ave * Columbus OH 43210
[log in to unmask]; 614-292-6065; 614-292-7378
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