Teaching Theatre and Performance Histories Mini-Conference 20-21 March 2024, University of Warwick

Theatre & Performance Histories

Teaching Theatre and Performance Histories Mini-Conference 20-21 March 2024, University of Warwick

Deadline: Friday 15 December 2023

Nearly twenty years ago, Anne Fliotsos and Gail Medford remarked on the lack of attention our discipline pays to teaching: “it is one of the great ironies of theatre scholarship that what most of us do, few of us study” (1). Much has changed in the decades since, from the kinds of students that we teach to the ways that they learn. Scholars have begun to take pedagogy more seriously, publishing essays on how to teach musical, queer, and global-majority theatre and performance histories, for example (2). Nevertheless, we have few opportunities to come together and talk about our teaching. This mini-conference aims to provide an occasion for sharing and reflecting on how we teach theatre and performance histories today. We invite 15-minute papers that respond to any aspect of this CfP from scholars and educators who teach any period of theatre and performance history. We’re especially open to alternative formats ranging from 5-minute provocations to 30-minute teaching demonstrations. As an output from this event, we’re considering developing the papers from this mini-conference into an edited collection. Presentations might (but should not be limited to) addressing one or more of the following questions in relation to teaching theatre and performance histories:

What does research-led teaching look like for us?
How are we teaching dramatic literature in innovative ways?
How are we decolonizing our curricula?
How do we use practice in our teaching?
What sorts of diverse assessment methods are we using?
Are we using gamification to engage our students?
How are we embedding skills development in our modules?
What are the modules that we teach that work well?
What best practices can we share for working with challenging materials?
Did covid-19 provide new opportunities for approaches to teaching?
How are we incorporating digital technologies in our teaching?
In what ways is seeing live theatre engaging our students in histories?
Do field trips enhance our practices?

Please send proposals to theatrehistory@tapra.org by 15 December 2023. In your proposal, please indicate your preference of format clearly, with a specific breakdown of any technical requirements. This mini-conference will be fully hybrid (in-person/online), and we are open to receiving proposals for online as well as in-person presentations. Presenters will be notified about the outcome of their proposal by 12 January 2024. As this is a mini-conference hosted by TaPRA’s Theatre and Performance Histories Working Group, there will be no registration fees, although presenters and attendees must be TaPRA members. If you are not currently a member, you will be able to join TaPRA for a small fee if your proposal is accepted for this event. We have limited funds to support bursaries for PG students who would not otherwise be able to attend. If you would like to be considered for these funds, please indicate this in your proposal. References: (1) Anne L. Fliotsos and Gail S. Medford, Teaching Theatre Today: Pedagogical Views of Theatre in Higher Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). (2) Stacy Wolf, “In Defense of Pleasure: Musical Theatre History in the Liberal Arts [A Manifesto],” Theatre Topics 17, no. 1 (2007): 51–60; Noe Montez and Kareem Khubchandani, “A Note from the Editors: Queer Pedagogy in Theatre and Performance,” Theatre Topics 30, no. 2 (2020): ix–xvii; Patricia Ybarra, “Gestures toward a Hemispheric Theatre History: A Work in Progress,” Theatre History Studies 39, no. 1 (2020): 123–39.

Please note: only one proposal may be submitted for a TaPRA event. It is not permitted to submit multiple proposals or submit the same proposal to several Calls for Participation. All presenters must be TaPRA members, i.e. registered for the event; this includes presentations given by Skype or other media broadcast even where the presenter may not physically attend the event venue.