Conference: American Identities on Stage

Things are going to be a little quiet around here over the next semester. But fear not: we'll be back in full effect come 2011. In the meantime, expect news snippets like this. The School of American Studies is very excited to be hosting an international conference marking the centennial of Tennessee Williams. You can find out more information here or visit the official conference website here. Here's the call for papers:

Celebrating 100 Years of Tennessee Williams (1911-2011)

American Identities on Stage:
20th Century American Drama International Postgraduate Conference

To commemorate the Tennessee Williams’s centennial, the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, will host a one-day international conference on 26 March 2011, focusing on theatrical representations of American identities. The invited keynote speaker is Professor Stephen Bottoms (University of Leeds).

On the day of Tennessee Williams’s 100th birthday, the 20th Century American Drama International Postgraduate Conference looks to revisit the theatre produced in the last century, considering a plurality of approaches from literary to theatre and performance studies, film, gender and GLBTQ studies, reflecting on the most recent critical and academic canon. Stressing the importance of Tennessee Williams, the conference hopes to be an international point of intersection for all those interested in Williams’s work and 20th century American drama in general. Topics of individual talks or collective panel discussions might include, but are not limited to:

• Identity authenticity, representation, construction, and performativity;
• Identity permanence, plurality, multiplicity, fluidity, and fragmentation;
• Private versus public identity;
• Identity and the other;
• Dissidence and identity;
• Selfhood and identity;
• Identity now and then;
• Identity and identification;
• Aspects of/informing identity, such as age, class, culture, gender, politics, race, religion, and sexuality;
• Theoretically inflected discussions of identity (Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Queer, etc.);
• Contesting/Subverting prescribed identity constructions.

The conference will commence with a plenary speech, followed by the different panels, and will conclude with a round table discussion, which will consider themes arising from the day. Please send a titled abstract between 200-300 words (for 20-minute paper presentations) and a brief CV to f.costa@uea.ac.uk by 17 December 2010.