MCLC: RMMLA Chinese Performance panel--cfp

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Megan Ammirati <meammirati at ucdavis.edu>
Subject: RMMLA Chinese Performance panel--cfp
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SCALL FOR PAPERS:

Abstracts are currently being accepted for a Chinese Drama and Performance
panel at the Rocky Mountain MLA. The 2013 conference will be held in
Vancouver, Washington from October 10th to 12th.

The field of Chinese drama is positioned at a crucial crossroads between
the past and present, East and West. Beginning in the start of the 20th
century, scholars have held up traditional theater as ³national drama²
(guoju), a cultural icon for the country¹s past. Modern drama, commonly
called ³spoken drama² (huaju), is defined as the genre of Chinese art that
has been the most influenced by Western models. Borrowing from Ibsen,
Shakespeare, and Strindberg, practitioners and researchers of modern
theater describe huaju as inherently hybrid and global.

A panel on Chinese drama and performance at the Rocky Mountain MLA in 2013
will question the validity of these common constructions. Participants
will ask to what extent realism can be allied with modernity and whether
history inevitably belongs to tradition.  The included papers also point
out that folk performances were still invested in innovation and reform
while modern playwrights found value in conventions and stock character
types. A probing look into the categories that make up Chinese drama will
additionally provide scholars an opportunity to discuss to particular
methodological approaches necessary for approaching performance-based
materials.

 
 
Please submit a proposal of no more than 250 words to Megan Ammirati
(Meammirati at ucdavis.edu) by March 1, 2013. Notice of acceptance or
rejection will be given by March 30, 2012.

-- 
Megan Ammirati
Graduate Student
Department of Comparative Literature
University of California, Davis