Call for Proposals: Women and Theatre Program?s Feminist Pedagogy Work Group

Posted by on April 7, 2006

Women and Theatre Program?s Feminist Pedagogy Work Group
Call For Participants

Deadline for Submissions: May 15, 2006

Feminist pedagogy is . . . teaching that engages students in political discussion of gender and justice. ? Berenice Malka Fisher

The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. ? bell hooks

The discourse of feminist pedagogy has made significant contributions to transforming academic structures and influencing individuals who teach drama, theatre and performance. More than merely sharing personal stories, putting our chairs in a circle, and critiquing the canon, feminist pedagogy in the theatre calls for us to use our art to reflect upon and act upon our identities and communities to make real social change. By constructing community, creating transnational spaces, engaging global perspectives, can we change institutions? Have we discovered productive ways of troubling disciplinary boundaries? Can we bring together both university and our surrounding communities to escape from the ivory tower? How have we shifted paradigms of teaching through digital technology? In what ways do we engage dialogue and difference beyond gender to allow for deep, embodied and passionate learning? How does feminist teaching guide our day to day interactions with students, shape our politics, our world view and nourish our spiritual lives? But when do we dangerously destabilize our own assumptions and identities? How do we stay open and willing to engage? When do we need to create our own boundaries? What makes us vulnerable within our own institutions? How can we support and acknowledge our own context specific work within disparate communities of practice? What resources, networks, and support systems do we need to create within the Women and Theatre Program to mentor and nurture ourselves?

Applicants to this work group may be graduate students, junior faculty or established scholars from any discipline that utilizes theatre and/or performance to actualize a feminist pedagogy. You are invited to submit a 500 word assignment or position paper that articulates a particular problem or discovery that relates to your teaching. We are particularly interested in teaching issues that pose critical questions and theorize feminist pedagogies in theatre. Once applicants have been accepted to the workgroup, they will be placed in affinity groups based on similar themes and questions. Participants will have the opportunity to read the work of other participants prior to the conference, have the option of corresponding over email, and will be encouraged to read such works as hooks? Teaching to Transgress, Donkin and Clement?s Upstaging Big Daddy, Fisher?s No Angel in the Classroom, Dolan?s Geographies of Learning, Stucy and Wimmer?s Teaching Performance Studies, and Macdonald and Sanchez-Casal?s Twenty-first Century Feminist Classrooms. On August 1st from 12:30-3:30 (the first session of the wtp pre-conference) the work group will convene and a moderator will be designated for each affinity group. After individual affinity group meetings, participants will have a time period to share themes and insights with each other and other attendees at WTP, giving us a broad overview of our work as feminist teachers in theatre/performance.

The themes explored will depend on the applicants, but below are possibilities to consider:
n Models of Collaboration: assignments for group learning, techniques for creating classroom community, team-teaching practices, collective creation and devising performances

n Embodied Practices: bridging body and mind, challenging acting and performance practices, reading history through the body, theorizing through the body, engaging technology through the body

n Activist Dramaturgies: taking feminist teaching into production seasons and engaging and listening to audiences

n Bridging Communities: exploring interdisciplinary identity crises, service learning serving feminist activism, distance learning and building communities through technology, and the role of theatre/performance in Women?s Studies programs

n Shifting Paradigms: integrating technology, rethinking structures of time and space, re-evaluating what counts as learning, creating transnational spaces and global perspectives

n Confronting Power: performing and embracing authority, dealing with student resistance, critiquing hierarchies, exploring the dynamics of power, locating and confronting privilege, moving from engaged dialogue to strategic action

Deadline for Submissions: May 15, 2006
Notification Date: June 15, 2006
Work Group Meeting Time: August 1, 2006 12:30-3:30 at Columbia College, Chicago

The 26th Annual Women and Theatre Program Conference will be co-sponsored by: Columbia College Chicago, Department of Art & Design and the Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media. This conference takes place August 1-2, 2006 (a pre-conference before the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference). The 26th Annual Women and Theatre Program Conference will focus on active feminist responses to geopolitical realities that shape our artistic and academic work, ?Displacements :: Genealogies, Generations and Geopolitics.? Confirmed Guests Artists for the conference include: About Face Theatre Company, Teatro Luna, and Karen Finley (a performance co-sponsored by Performance Studies and LGBT through an ATHE Focus Group Grant). For more information about the Women and Theatre Pre-conference, go to: http://www.athe.org/wtp

For the WTP Feminist Pedagogy Work Group, all inquiries and position papers should be sent to the Co-Chairs by May 15th, preferably via email:

Ann Elizabeth Armstrong
Center for Performing Arts, Room 131
Department of Theatre
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
Armstra2@muohio.edu

Kathleen Juhl
Dept. of Theatre
Southwestern University
P.O. Box 770
Georgetown, Texas 78627
juhlk@southwestern.edu