CALL FOR PAPERS
for the group’s main meeting in
Santiago de Chile, 22 to 28 July 2012
and its ancillary meeting at a location TBA (likely London), September 2012
Performing Transcendence
At the Performance and Religion Working Group’s founding meeting at the IFTR 2011 conference in Osaka, it was decided to make the publication of an anthology the main output of the working group’s four-year research plan. This work will begin at the July 2012 IFTR meeting in Santiago. However in the interest of accommodating as many researchers as possible, we will add an ancillary meeting with the same call for papers for those who cannot attend the primary meeting in Santiago. The papers presented at both meetings will form the basis for developing the publication.
Transcendence is a key concept in religion and spirituality, but one that often evades easy description, discussion or analysis. The transcendent is connected to what Geertz calls the “uniquely realistic”—it may be conceptualised as God, a supernatural order, the human community, the Big Other, an ultimate truth, and so on. As the transcendent evades human language, it is often the subject of performances, whether aesthetic or ritual, which seek to embody or present it. In these performances, transcendence is evoked or experienced before it is understood.
We are interested in exploring transcendence as an experiential concept of theatrical and ritual events within and outside religious and theatrical institutions, from historical or contemporary perspectives. Questions considered may include the conceptualisation, staging, politics, ethics, meaning and function of transcendence in a variety of religious and performative traditions. What artistic and liturgical strategies are used to evoke transcendence in performance? How are these strategies constituted and performed from the perspectives of different participants (celebrants and congregants, performers and spectators)? How may these performances be seen to uphold or challenge systems of belief or ideas of faith?
The working group is interested in proposals that interrogate these or related questions. Abstracts (ca. 250 words) will be accepted in English and French. The group’s primary working language is English.
The following is the schedule for proposals to both meetings:
- Abstracts are due no later than 30 January 2012
- However, members who wish to apply for IFTR bursaries to attend the Santiago meeting should note that such applications are due 1 December 2011. Bursary applicants are thus advised to submit their abstracts as soon as possible. (IFTR bursaries are not available for the ancillary meeting.)
- Notice on acceptance will be given by 28 February 2012
- Finalized papers are to be submitted by email by 15 June 2012
- Papers will then be distributed to the groups’ members for discussion before the conference. In Santiago (and at the ancillary meeting), we will discuss the papers rather than taking time to read them out.
Note: If you can, please attend the main meeting rather than the ancillary meeting. All papers will be distributed to the whole group, whether they are discussed at the main or ancillary meeting.
We welcome new members to join the group, from graduate students to senior scholars. We are particularly keen to ensure its membership reflects the geographic and theoretical diversity of the IFTR. This group is open to members from all national and cultural backgrounds, and it interests itself in all the world’s religious, spiritual and performative traditions. Both religion and performance are, in our view, sets of social and cultural practices that have a profound and long- lasting importance to those involved in them. Because these practices are so important, we are committed to a nonsectarian inquiry of them. We assume no particular faith or religious affiliation for our members or our work.
Abstracts should be submitted through IFTR’s online system, which is managed by Cambridge Journals. For instructions, please visit http://www.firt2012chile.uc.cl/index.php/en/conference/papers
If you are submitting a paper for the ancillary meeting only, please indicate that in your submission.
All questions or discussions should be sent to the group’s conveners, Joshua Edelman (Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London) and Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen (Department of Musicology and Theatre Studies, Stockholm University) at: performanceandreligion@gmail.com
For more information on the working group, please see our (new) websites, home.performanceandreligion.org or www.yavanika.org/pandr
