D. Ross, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Judgments of taste often derive from bodies.  Performances "in good taste" typically involve the exhibition of a body's physical or virtuosic skill, while performances considered "in bad taste" have nearly always involved the presentation of bodies that are somehow not "normal" bodies that are not, for example, clothed, white, thin, beautiful, clean, or healthy. Performances ranging from popular entertainments to "legitimate" theatre routinely exploit bodies either to satisfy or to critique the public taste: strip shows, Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man, circuses, drag contests, Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room, contortionists, actors in fat suits to play Shakespeare's Falstaff.  Sometimes this exploitation occurs at the expense of individual dignity, but sometimes it is undertaken self-consciously in order to shock audiences or challenge cultural norms.  Sometimes, too, evaluations of taste based on the presented bodies can interfere with the intention of a performance, as when the inclusion of disabled, diseased, or unusual bodies on the "legitimate" stage unintentionally generates a freak-show effect.  In addition, judgments of taste can usually be traced to a bodily reaction in the viewer, a visceral assessment of what does (or should) make some body feel admiration, in the case of good taste, or discomfort, in the case of poor taste.  Disability theorist Tobin Siebers has even suggested that aesthetics consists of "what some bodies feel in the presence of other bodies."

For this seminar I invite abstracts for papers that examine judgments of taste in relation to bodies.  Proposals oriented towards a theoretical, historical, or interdisciplinary overview of the topic are encouraged, as well as those providing a close analysis of specific performances.  In particular, I seek proposals that explore:

Individuals accepted to the seminar will be expected to submit a paper of less than 12 pages (double-spaced) for email circulation or web posting by mid-September 2004, and seminar participants will begin our discussion via email prior to the November conference.

Please send an abstract (max. 500 words), contact information, and a brief bio as email attachments in .rtf format ONLY to:

D. Ross, drossz@umich.edu

Dept. of Theatre & Drama, University of Michigan, 2550 Frieze Building, Ann Arbor, MI  48109.

Hard copy submissions of abstracts will also be accepted if received before the deadline, though papers of participants must be submitted electronically.

Megan Sanborn Jones, Brigham Young University
Glen Jones, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

The Producers has grossed over $160 million on Broadway, with ticket prices selling for as much as $480.  Flagging ticket sales at the end of 2003 rebounded with the return of original cast members Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, whose star power was enough to fill a New Year's Eve house with tickets at $600 a piece.  This sold-out house set a Broadway box-office recordCa remarkable event made even more so by its ironic self-reflexivity.  The show that made the most money in the history of Broadway is a show about how Broadway shows are produced in order to make money.  Just down the street, Rosie O'Donnell's production of Taboo closed after two months and a $10 million loss.  In response to the closing, Lane as Max Bialystock added a new line to his performance: _Everyone knows you shouldn't invest your own money in a Broadway show. That's taboo._  While the financial successes and failures of musicals on Broadway are a particular case, the complicated issues suggested by The Producers and Taboo serve to point to the larger question of the relationship between economics and the theatre: what exactly is the cost of production (financially, socially, culturally)?

Theatres across the countryC professional, regional, and educationalCare raising ticket prices to meet the demands of increased production costs that come with spectacle, a resurgence of the star system, union wages, loss of funding, and stiff competition from other forms of entertainment.  The financial risk of such expensive ventures determines the types of shows, producing bodies, venues, and run lengths.  Increased ticket prices limits who can attend the theatre, and why theatre is attended.  Most significantly, the relationship between economics and theatre puts a price tag on the way in which theatre is perceived in the industry, in the academy, and in popular culture.  Financial considerations have become a major factor in determining artistic and cultural taste.

We are interested in papers that explore how economics impact the production and reception of theatre today.  Papers dealing with theatre production might consider questions such as:

Papers concerned with reception might consider questions such as:

Please submit a 500 word paper abstract as a  Word (.doc) attachment to:
Megan Sanborn Jones, msjones@byu.edu  by 31 May 2004.

Daphne Lei, University of California at Irvine
Jorge Huerta, University of California at San Diego
Nadine Graves-George, University of California at San Diego

The term “acquired taste” indicates that taste is not just inborn, but also something that can be learned and “acquired.”  But acquired taste also implies a sense of unnaturalness, exception, and separation from the norm.  If ethnic performance seems a natural taste for a community, how is this taste taught, translated, and marketed to people outside the community?  If globalization helps disseminate and promote the acquired taste for ethnic food, can we imagine ethnic performance will gradually become “natural” for the world audience?  Who is producing and consuming the ethnic taste?  Can one market an “authentic” ethnic performance, just like advertising for authentic ethnic restaurant?   In an increasingly globalized milieu and multicultural theatre curriculum, how can ethnic performance be broached in relation to taste?  Proposals investigating the following questions are sought:

Eng-Beng Lim, University of California at Los Angeles
Tavia Nyong'o, New York University

In recent years, a body of scholarship under the rubric of "global queering" is pointing to an emergent "lesbian and gay world" or signs of what we think of as "modern" homosexuality. According to this scholarship, this "global >subculture'" is dominated primarily by the lesbian and gay cultural models of the USA and secondarily Europe. For better or worse, "universal" and "modern" are considered to be Western properties in this global cultural imaginary of "queer," "lesbian," "gay," and/or "transgender." Such an unquestioned presumption in comparative queer studies reiterates the dualities that fix the non-Western world as "local" and the West as "global." Notably, much of this scholarship is inflected by a white gay male optic that uses a style of enlightened postcolonial ethnography, acknowledging the privilege of its gaze while nonetheless replicating some dimensions of Western economic and cultural hegemony. Queer "Asia" and queer "Africa" emerge in this literature as sites of inquiry situated within a suspiciously neoliberal topography.

In this seminar we will propose ways of exploring queer "Asia" and queer "Africa" that not only subvert the dominance of white queer culture, but which also examine the inter-Asian and inter-African dimensions of queer globalizations that have been neglected by scholars. Using theatre and performance as our guiding scenarios, we discourage the reduction of "global queering" to a unidirectional process of Westernization or Americanization, and seek an active engagement in the queer cultural resources circulating within Asia, Africa, and their diasporas. We are reintroducing a discussion of neoliberalism and US/European cultural hegemony in a literature that presupposes and ignores it. But we also seek to expand the critical parameters of such binaries as "East/West" and "North/South" to include circuits of mobility within the "East" and/or "South," and forces other than neoliberalism, that effect the inter-Asian and inter-African circulation of queer cultures.  We seek proposals that explore the following:

While all disciplinary and epistemic approaches are welcome, we are particularly interested in those that deal critically with the intersection of globalization, queer, feminist, diaspora, and area studies. Suggestions of related topics are welcome, and we encourage scholars from Africa and Asia to submit proposals. Essays should be of conference paper length, 10-12 pages

Please submit a 250 to 500 word abstract (attached or pasted in an email) by May 31 to:
Eng-Beng Lim,  eb@ucla.edu
AND Tavia Nyong'o tavia.nyongo@nyu.edu

If email is not available, hard-copy submissions, also due by May 31, 2004, may be made to:

Eng-Beng Lim
UCLA Theatre, Critical Studies & International Institute
11343 Bunche Hall, Box 951487, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1487.

and

Tavia Nyong'o
New York University Performance Studies
721 Broadway, Room 628, New York, NY 10003

Barbara W. Grossman, Tufts University
Mary Jo Lodge, Central Michigan University
Korey Rothman, University of Maryland

Officer Lockstock: Everything in its time, Little Sally. You're too young to understand it now, but nothing can kill a show like too much exposition.

Little Sally: How about bad subject matter?

Officer Lockstock: Well B

Little Sally: Or a bad title, even? That could kill a show pretty good.

Urinetown, act 1, scene 1

Only a few years ago, a title like Urinetown would not have appeared on Broadway, but in 2001 audiences flocked to this show, which garnered the Tony Award for Best Musical. As John Bush Jones notes in his recent book, Our Musicals, Ourselves, the history of musical theatre in America can be viewed as a 150-year march through the changing entertainment tastes of the American public. In his words:

Generally speaking, what makes a musical succeed is simple (if vague) enough: something about the show captures the public imagination and people swarm to see itYThe reasons for musicals failing are complex and varied, some historically grounded, others coming down simply to a matter of taste.

From the "Merry Widow" craze in the early 1900s to the ersatz folksiness of Oklahoma_ and the mass marketing frenzies surrounding modern productions like Cats or The Lion King, musicals have historically tapped into the tastes of American audiences. Yet, as evidenced by the buxom burlesquers of the 19^th century, Sondheim's chorus of presidential assassins, and the terpsichorean octogenarians of The Producers, musicals have also appealed to mass audiences by pushing the boundaries of "good taste."

This seminar invites papers that address the relationship between the changing tastes of the American public and musical theatre.  Potential avenues of inquiry include, but are not limited to the following questions:

500 word (maximum) abstracts should be sent via e-mail to Korey Rothman krothman@wam.umd.edu by May 31, 2004 for review by all session leaders.

Victor Emeljanow, University of Newcastle, Australia

By definition "melodrama" describes a process of engagement between the aural and visual senses. Its form has influenced European theatre pervasively over the last 200 years. Cinema and television continue to use its dramatic paradigms. Considerable work has been done on the visual signs of spectacle in both Western and non-Western cultures, as well as the ways in which melodrama embodies and articulates fashions and social values. Yet there has been relatively little discussion about the ways in which music animates, complements and interprets spectacle. Indeed, one might argue that it is perfectly possible to seduce the ear without recourse to the eye; the converse, however, results in a sensory, and therefore, a communicative impoverishment.

The panel invites papers which investigate how the aural and the visual interact to create meaning for the spectator. It would especially welcome interdisciplinary papers that engage with the topic from theatrical, musicological, or cinematic perspectives as well as cross-cultural discussions that embrace the music and visual aspects of both Western and non-Western spectacular entertainment. Papers might consider such issues as:

These suggestions are intended to be suggestive rather than restrictive. Proposals for inclusion on the panel should be no longer than 500 words and submitted electronically to the Chair by May 31.

Victor Emeljanow, Victor.Emeljanow@newcastle.edu.au

Adam Versényi, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Jean Graham-Jones, Florida State University

In an episode of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny, Brecht presents a character whose gluttonous appetite leads him to eat himself to death in front of our eyes. In Baal, the lead character is a riotous conglomeration of excesses as he drinks, eats, fornicates, masturbates, sings, robs, and poeticizes. In each case Brecht uses bad taste to elicit certain responses in his audience. This seminar seeks to explore how effective bad taste is in achieving theatrical response. What is the difference between Brecht's approach and a Stephen King novel or a slasher film? Does Eduardo Pavlovsky's presentation of a love affair between a torturer and his female victim in Paso de Dos succeed in exploring the relationship between victim and victimizer or turn the audience into voyeurs spectator into voyeur? Does a performance piece in which the performer smears herself with her own feces make an evocative statement or simply gross us out? Can the use of bad taste in the theatre be seen as the contemporary equivalent of Artaud's _objective unforeseen,_ shocking us into newfound realizations about ourselves and the world around us, or is it the puerile stuff of adolescent fantasy? Can such performances realize multiple effects at the same time, effectively exploring the limits of taste AND satiating audience expectations?

This seminar invites participants to taste the limits on bad taste in the theatre. Papers, presentations, and performances might explore the following:

Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words in Word (.doc) format by May 31 to:
Adam Versényi, anversen@email.unc.edu
AND Jean Graham-Jones, jgrahamj@fsu.edu

Sarah Bryant-Bertail, University of Washington
Jennifer Lavy, University of Washington
Scott W. Cole, University of Washington

"What would a history of the theatre in relation to the senses and specifically the interplay of table and stage, the staging of food as theatre, and the theatrical use of food be like if it were written?"

~ Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimlett

This question is a starting point and contextualizing framework for this seminar.  Theatre stages not only Kant's sublimated aesthetic sense of taste but also the physical matter of taste.  Both the aesthetic and material faculties of taste are modeled in the theatre, and the relationship between these two faculties is performed through scenes of eating not only on the stage but also in the language of dialogue and stage directions, in the theatre lobby and café, and in the spectator's imagination.

 We welcome diverse theoretical, historical, and practical investigations of this topic.  Examples may be drawn from Western or non-Western performance on stage, as social ceremony, or as historical event.  Questions to explore might include the following:

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words by hard copy or e-mail to all three co-chairs.  Abstracts must be received by May 31, 2004.

Sarah Bryant-Bertail, Associate Professor, School of Drama, Box 353950, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-3950

E-mail: Sarah Bryant-Bertail sarahbb@u.washington.edu
AND Scott W. Cole coles@u.washington.edu
AND Jennifer Lavy jlavy@u.washington.edu

Jill Dolan, University of Texas at Austin

The concept of utopia has been a prime political force in various moments of world history, perhaps especially in the United States in the 1960s.  Marxist intellectuals like Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Bloch theorized the potential of art practices to model a social utopia through the workings of a creative, often dissident imagination, one that fantasized the world as it might be to motivate resistance to the world as it is.

My own engagement with utopia has followed the Marxist philosophers, finding "utopian performatives" in live performance that reject a fixed, more static vision of utopia, and that work instead to offer a fleeting glimpse, an ephemeral feeling, of what a better world might be like.  Utopian performatives can never congeal into a permanent, coercive, imperative social or cultural form; their power is inevitably temporary, since they are "doings" crafted from the present moment of interaction between performers and spectators in a specifically situated material, historical performance.  Their affective power lies in their ability to move spectators and performers to "communitas," and to inspire them to recreate these utopian "doings" in larger configurations of culture.

This seminar will investigate ways of engaging with utopian performatives, or utopia in/and performance.  Papers might riff on this theme from a variety of perspectives, including but not limited to:

Submissions should include a 500-word abstract that details your proposed paper, and a 50-word bio that situates the proposal within your other scholarly commitments and briefly describes where you do your work.  Because ASTR values a mix of senior and junior professors and graduate students in seminars, please include a few words about where you fit in these (or other) categories.  Final papers of no longer than 12 pages will be distributed via email and discussed before the November conference, and the panel will proceed as a congenial, detailed public discussion of each other's work and the ideas the papers raise. 

Please send abstracts and bios via email only (MSWord attachments preferred) to:

Jill Dolan, jdolan@uts.cc.utexas.edu

Joshua Abrams, City University of New York
Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, Rutgers University

Like pornography, spectacle is often found in the eye of the beholder, recognizable rather than definable.  An OED definition of spectacle reads "A piece of stage-display or pageantry, as contrasted with real drama."(ital. added).  Despite this seemingly strict delineation, theatrical presentation has often historically relied on spectacular display and adopted the visual semiotics of spectacle to critique particular moments, and spectacle itself has often drawn from theatrical vocabularies to stage the world.  This seminar will explore the commingling of "high" and "low" at moments when spectacle and theatre come together. Is all theatre spectacle?  Is all spectacle theatre?

From Mel Gibson's violent dramatization of the Passion to the Haitian coup-d'etat to Fox's Man v. Beast 2 and The Littlest Groom to the Martha Stewart/Scott Peterson/Michael Jackson trials to Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," spectacle is everywhere.  Theatre must choose how it addresses the increasing spectacle of the age, whether in a conscious "poor theatre" rejection or in the varying spectacular presentations of such theatrical extravaganzas as the television "reality" Jerry Springer: The Musical, the work of multimedia companies The Builders' Association and Robert Wilson, the ambiguous theatricality/sexuality/animality of Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity, or the ripped-from-the-headlines topicality of Tim Robbins's Embedded. What is at stake in returning spectacle to the stage in a society that is so driven by non-theatrical spectacle? What are the particular responsibilities of theatre to comment on and draw from the everyday presence of violent, graphic display?

Individual papers/presentations might seek to address these issues through the following questions:

Papers should be 10-12 pages long and might include, where possible, a visual component.  We encourage creativity in the types of papers proposed: web sites, video presentations, etc., are welcome, but must be able to be circulated among seminar participants in advance.  Prior to submitting papers, participants may be asked to circulate brief suggested bibliographies.  We welcome a variety of methodological approaches, including, but not limited to, anthropological, historical, philosophical, economic, and sociological.  We will initiate online discussion prior to the face-to-face conference meeting.

Please submit a 250-500 word proposal by 31 May 2004 to both seminar co-chairs:

Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, Zstarbuck@aol.com
AND Josh Abrams, Jabrams@gc.cuny.edu