15 Mar Call for Papers/Presentations: The Knowing Body Deadline March 30, 2012
Student Colloquium
the IHC’s Performance Studies RFG
University of California, Santa Barbara
June 1, 2012
Corporeality has long been a driving issue in performance studies, as scholars and performers have sought to understand the many roles the body has performed throughout history and across cultures. Increasingly, the term “corporealities” has come to encompass the multiple encodings inscribed upon and embodied within the flesh. More than a way of being, theorists from diverse fields have proposed that “corporeality” refers not just to the materiality of bodies, but to embodiment as a way of knowing. Can the body be considered an archive, a mobile, historical space of memory and consciousness, capable of healing and art making? What if the “knowing body” was inclusive of the notion of the dancing body? What, then, do bodies know, and how do they come to know? What impact does reading bodies as “knowing” have on different fields of inquiry, such as education, medicine, and the law? What impact does it have on physical endeavors such as dance and sports? What implications might it have for social justice? Does the concept of the knowing body exist only as a theoretical abstraction, or can it be quantified in practice? How might concepts of the knowing body differ by cultural group? How does the notion of the knowing body change existing conceptions of the intellect and the self?
The Performance Studies Research Focus Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara invites proposals from graduate and advanced undergraduate students for 20-minute paper sessions, performances (or excerpts), and organized roundtable discussions concerning the issue of the knowing body. The questions above are intended as prompts, but submissions exploring other issues related to performance studies will also be considered. Students from all disciplines are welcome, as are proposals for experimental work and work in progress for which students would like feedback.
Please send an abstract of 250-300 words along with a cover sheet listing your name, institutional affiliation and department, contact details, primary area of interest or research, the title and format of your proposed presentation, and a description of any technical or audio/visual requirements to Shannon M. Lieberman (shannon02@umail.ucsb) by March 30, 2012. Notifications of acceptance will be issued by April 18, 2012. There is no fee to participate in or attend the colloquium.
Performance Studies Research Focus Group Co-conveners:
Ruth Hellier-Tinoco, Music, Theater & Dance Ninotchka Bennahum, Theater & Dance
Shannon M. Lieberman, History of Art & Architecture Dorota Dutsch, Classics
Sponsored by the IHC’s Performance Studies RFG.