PhD Symposium Re-Casting the Commons: Reflections on Contemporary Politics, Performance and Scholarship

The University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies is hosting the PhD Symposium - Recasting the Commons: Reflections on Contemporary Politics, Performance and Scholarship on March 9, 2018.   For obvious reasons, there is much concern in the greater Washington-Baltimore region with the current political climate here in the U.S. and with its implications for the practice of theatre and scholarship. But such concerns, understandable and recognizable though they may be, are neither unique to our geographical area or to the particulars of Washington politics in the Trump era. Indeed, the overtly nationalistic, anti-immigrant and racially charged rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration are unfortunately only examples of similar authoritarian political shifts that are identifiable world-wide. For those of us in the arts and in the academy, such shifts raise fundamental questions about the work that we do as practitioners and scholars, and about the new challenges we face amid the rise of the most reactionary undercurrents of society. Above all, those shifts raise concerns about the efficacy of our endeavors – in the theatre and in the academy – within political climates that offer renewed mainstream legitimacy and power to old racial, ethnic and cultural bigotries. In simplest terms, our symposium is focused on these concerns.    Collectively, our invited speakers will ask us to “re-cast,” and re-conceptualize the strategies of political engagement that will be required in theatre and scholarship as we move toward the close of the 21st century’s second decade.   Avishek Ganguly - “How to do Things With Words, in Politics” ​Patricia Herrera - “Seize the Time, Sounding Out Radicalism: Universes’ Party People" Julius Fleming, Jr. - "Black Patience: Performance and the Aesthetics of Decolonial Time"  ​Jodi Kanter - “Acts of Treason: American Artists in the USSR”

For more information and to register click here.