The ATHE conference platform has re-opened for individual submissions to sessions seeking additional participants. The deadline to submit a proposal to join an existing session is April 1.
Follow this link to find the submission page as well as the full list of 35(!) virtual and in-person sessions looking to get more people involved: Also see this document highlighting the sessions DTAP is sponsoring, plus a couple more that may be of particular interest. If you know someone who would make a great addition to one of these sessions, please get this info to their inbox and encourage them to submit a proposal! We look forward to hearing from you!
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Call for Papers: Disability Performance Histories
A Special Section of Theatre History Studies Volume 46 (2026) Co-Editors: Patrick McKelvey and Samuel Yates In 2010, Susan Schweik observed that “with the notable exception of histories of the freak show, work in disability performance studies tends to focus on contemporary examples.”[1] Fifteen years later, the field’s historiographic impulses hardly seem as settled as they once were. Recent and forthcoming monographs continue to reshape this landscape: in early modern disability performance histories—Katherine Schaap Williams’s Unfixable Forms; nineteenth-century disability performance histories—Dennis Tyler’s Disabilities of the Color Line and Camille Owens’s Like Children; and postwar disability performance histories—Patrick McKelvey’s Disability Works and Will Kanyusik’s The Illegible Man.[2] In combination with ongoing investigations into the disability histories of modern drama by Aleksei Grinenko, Kirsty Johnston, and Hannah Simpson, these are just a few examples of the arrival of more varied and robust disability performance histories that were unimaginable even a decade ago.[3] The breadth and depth of these contributions notwithstanding, one would be hard-pressed to contest the idea that certain forms of presentism don’t shape the contours, commitments, and methods that structure the ever-growing field of disability theatre and performance studies—despite calls by some of our field’s founders for historical interventions.[4] The reasons for this overwhelmingly contemporary orientation are multiple: flourishing twenty-first-century disability arts and culture movements that rightly demand our critical attention; the imperative contributions of artist-scholars in the field whose interventions necessarily require that they document and theorize their own artistic practices; the access barriers that accompany archival research and travel; purposeful and unconscious elisions of disability and crip/queer bodyminds from archives and finding aids alike; inadequate institutional support for disability scholarship; and uneven effects of an increasingly precarious profession on disabled scholars, all intensified by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; and the broader co-constitution of anti-theatricality and anti-historicism that continues to inflect theatre and performance research. And yet, the editors of this special section suspect another factor may be at play: the continued and pervasive separation and policing of disciplinary methodologies through rubrics of “legibility” and institutional bureaucracies, resulting in inadequate dialogue between the fields of disability theatre and performance research and disability history. This results in a pronounced lack of opportunities to reflect on the historical and historiographic assumptions, commitments, and opportunities internal to the field of disability theatre and performance research, and diminishing opportunities for disability historians to learn from theatre and performance theory and historiography. Structuring absences like these are perhaps all the more surprising in light of how the broader field of disability history continues to flourish, including histories of access and design (Bess Williamson’s Accessible America; Aimi Hamraie’s Building Access); Sami Schalk’s invitation to examine forms of disability activism that unfolded beyond the norms and practices of white-majority disability rights movements (Black Disability Politics); Sari Altschuler’s theorization of “historical cripistemology” to foreground crip ways of historical knowing; and Jennifer Barclay and Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy’s provocation for disability scholars to begin “cripping the archive.”[5] The tension between these disciplinary developments is an invitation to revive and reassess the historical and historiographic commitments that have long governed disability performance research, such as Petra Kuppers’s deployment of queer historiography to build performance practices that “touch history for crip culture.”[6] This special issue takes as its project the advancement of historical methods in disability theatre and performance research and the critical appraisal of the historiographic norms of research in the field to date. Potential topics might include:
Contributions that examine these topics with attention to race, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, and class, and/or reconfigure the geographic contours of disability theatre and performance research, particularly with respect to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including diasporic histories, are especially welcome. We are particularly interested in traditional scholarly essays of 7,000-9,000 words (including notes), but if you have an idea for an alternative format, please inquire with the editors. Please send all manuscripts and inquiries to [email protected] by January 1, 2025. Theatre History Studies is the official journal of the Mid-America Theatre Conference and is published by the University of Alabama Press. Since 1981, Theatre History Studies has provided critical, analytical, and descriptive articles on all aspects of theatre history. The journal is devoted to disseminating the highest quality scholarly endeavors to promote understanding and discovery of world theatre history. Essays for the general section should be between 6,000-8,000 words and use endnotes rather than footnotes. Submissions in alternate formats will be considered on an individual basis. Illustrations are encouraged. Manuscripts should be prepared in conformity with the guidelines in the Chicago Manual of Style and the University of Alabama Press style sheet located on the MATC website (here). Theatre History Studies accepts submissions for its general section on the full range of topics in theatre history on a rolling deadline. Please send manuscripts for the general section to: Jocelyn L. Buckner, Editor, at [email protected]. ------ References [1] Susan Schweik, “Marshall P. Wilder and Disability Performance History.” Disability Studies Quarterly 30, nos. 3-4 (2010), np. [2] Katherine Schaap Williams, Unfixable Forms: Disability, Performance, and the Early Modern English Theater. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021. Dennis Tyler, Disabilities of the Color Line. New York: New York University Press, 2022. Camille Owens, Like Children: Black Prodigy and the Measure of the Human in America. New York: New York University Press, 2024. Patrick McKelvey, Disability Works: Performance After Rehabilitation. New York: New York University Press, 2024. Will Kanyusik, The Illegible Man: Disability and Masculinity in Twentieth Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2025. [3] Aleksei Grinenko, Seriously Mad: Mental Distress and the Broadway Musical. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023. Kirsty Johnston, Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. Hannah Simpson, Samuel Beckett and Disability Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. [4] Ann M. Fox and Carrie Sandahl, “‘Frenemies’ of the Canon: Our Two Decades of Studying and Teaching Disability in Drama and Performance.” In Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US, edited by Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore, and Angela Farr Schiller, 147-160. New York: Routledge, 2022. [5] Bess Williamson, Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design. New York: New York University Press, 2020. Aimi Hamraie, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. Sami Schalk, Black Disability Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022. Sari Altschuler, “Touching The Scarlet Letter: What Disability History Can Teach Us about Literature.” American Literature 92, no. 1 (2020), 91-122. Jennifer Barclay and Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy, Cripping the Archive: Disability, History, and Power (edited collection in progress). [6] Petra Kuppers, Disability Culture and Community Performance: Find a Strange and Twisted Shape. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011. Pp. 154. The Crip Narratives Collective at the University of Texas at Austin, a new research initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation and investigating cross-disability solidarity and peer mentorship, invites applications for a one-year postdoctoral/post-MFA fellow to begin August 16, 2024. We seek a candidate with a scholarly and/or creative project focused on intersectional disability studies, activism, or arts and culture. We are open to a broad range of projects and conceptualizations of disability. Fellows will be expected to participate actively in the life of the Crip Narratives Collective, a network of UT faculty and students exploring disability and expressive culture. While there is no expectation of teaching with this fellowship, the successful candidate is expected to dedicate the 2024-2025 academic year to developing a creative or scholarly project related to the grant's focus. Duties include sharing and offering feedback on works-in-progress with other members of the Collective, collaborating on research-based strategies for supporting disabled students and colleagues, meeting with visiting artists, and assisting with and attending CNC meetings and events.
Application link: https://apply.interfolio.com/13930 Themed Issue: Consent is an Access Issue: Rethinking Disability, Accessibility, and Consent-Based Theatre Practices
Call for Papers Deadline: March 31, 2024 Submission Guidelines “Disabled people’s liberation cannot be boiled down to logistics.” –Mia Mingus Logistics, policies, “diversifying” seasons through quotas, and pre-prescribed accommodations will never establish a liberatory theatre or educational process; liberatory space can only be created through unbegrudging access and openness to fully, intersectionally welcoming all people. Mia Mingus (2017) highlights the experience of many disabled folx, who are told “we must shrink ourselves and our desires to settle for living in the wake of an able-bodied parade.” Alison Kafer (2013) argues that our society not only pressures disabled people to shrink, but seeks their eradication, stating that disabled people are treated with a “presumption of agreement” with the abled perspective in which “disabled people are continually being written out of the future, rendered as a sign of the future no one wants.” Both Mingus and Kafer highlight ways in which our social and legal structures strip disabled people of the right to consent. These dynamics are further complicated by intersectional identification with multiple disenfranchised populations, which compounds the experience of violation, exclusion, and misrepresentation. Rarely do organizations dedicated to liberation from one form of oppression proactively consider questions of access and inclusion for those experiencing other forms of discrimination. Drawing on her experience as a “queer physically disabled Korean transracial and transnational adoptee raised in the Caribbean” (Mingus 2009), Mingus writes evocatively of the pain of experiencing one (or more) forms of discrimination in spaces dedicated to fighting against another, noting “the ways that ableism and white supremacy work together so successfully to isolate disabled people of color continues to break my heart.” Our identities are simultaneous; we can never separate our disability from other aspects of our being. When only one element of identity is respected and included, the whole self is rejected. In theatrical spaces, disabled people are often forcibly absent; the vast majority–more than ninety-five percent--of disabled roles are performed by abled performers (Kataja 2020), and only extremely rarely are disabled artists hired for non-explicitly disabled roles or any other position in the theatre. Furthermore, the vast majority of theatrical spaces and processes were designed with only ableds in mind. In theatrical settings and in theatre education, then, when disabled people are actually present, the disabled bodymind is treated as a crisis to be solved or a material to be molded to fit abled expectations–of character interpretation, of physical practice and style, and of ways of inhabiting space and time. However, when the problem is viewed as located in the being of the disabled individual, the only solutions seen are the removal of disability, through ability-masking, when possible, and the complete rejection and removal of the student/artist who cannot or will not conform to ableist expectation. When the lived experience of disabled people is so thoroughly permeated by exclusion, shrinking (Mingus 2017), or being molded in order to survive in abled spaces, the choices and actions of disabled students and artists is inherently shaped by coercive forces, rendering full and free consent to educators, directors, and managers absent barring specific, extraordinary effort on the part of the abled individuals in power, an issue further complicated by intersectional experience of oppression across multiple identifications. As such, the future of a disability-inclusive theatre depends on ensuring all bodyminds experience a space built around not only access, but the physical and emotional safety necessary to create consensual intimacy, and with it the kind of daring, risky performance choices leading to the best of the theatrical arts. For this special issue of the Journal of Consent-Based Performance, co-edited by JCBP corresponding editor Amanda Rose Villarreal and guest editor Catherine (Katya) Vrtis, we are calling for theoretical and practical interventions to this eliminationist view of disability in theatre pedagogy, practice, and scholarship. These approaches can include but are not limited to considerations of the following questions:
The JCBP will be accepting scholarly articles and notes from the field for this issue until March 31, 2024. Manuscripts can be submitted at https://journals.calstate.edu/jcbp/about/submissions For an overview of JCBP’s distinction between Notes From the Field and Articles, please review our submission guidelines at https://journals.calstate.edu/jcbp/about/submissions Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, Queer, Crip. 1st edition. Bloomington (Ind.): Indiana University Press. Kataja, Rosanna. 2020. “Inclusion, Don’t Forget About Us: Disabilities in Performing Arts.” Harvard Political Review (blog). October 24, 2020. https://harvardpolitics.com/disabilities-in-performing-arts/. Mingus, Mia. 2009. “About.” Leaving Evidence (blog). October 29, 2009. https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/about-2/. ———. 2017. “Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability Justice.” Leaving Evidence (blog). April 12, 2017. https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/access-intimacy-interdependence-and-disability-justice/. We're extending DTAP's deadline for individual submissions and groups seeking a couple more presenters. Please send us your proposals by Wednesday, Jan. 10.
As conference planners, we’re hoping to be able to facilitate connecting folks with other artist-scholars with whom they might be in productive conversation ahead of when ATHE's submission platform closes on 1/16. Next week, we'll be grouping thematically related proposals into panels and reaching out to relevant focus groups who may want to co-sponsor a session. If you have an idea, send it our way! In the meantime, we've been gathering all ideas for ATHE proposals that have come in from across the listservs and zoom meetings all in one place. This Open Brainstorming Google Doc includes proposals from multiple focus groups including Disability Theatre and Performance (DTAP), LGBTQ+, Performance Studies, Middle Eastern Theatre (MET), Musical Theatre and Dance (MTD) and VASTA focus groups. Follow the link to see proposals in progress, find out who to contact to get involved, and add your own ideas! Open Google Doc. ATHE Brainstorming DTAP Call for Proposals 2024 Disability, Theatre, and Performance (DTAP) is hosting an informal virtual gathering on Friday, December 15 from 2-3:30 pm EST. Drop by our Zoom room to:
Questions? Contact [email protected] Link to Zoom event: https://uky.zoom.us/j/87264641555 Add the event to your Calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=M3FpbGR0NmljNWIzanJ2NG91cmw4NnQzYTIgbmljb2xhc3NoYW5ub25zYXZhcmRAbQ&tmsrc=nicolasshannonsavard%40gmail.com -- DTaP's call for papers for ATHE 2024 is now open through January 5! All information available on the ATHE 2024 page.dtap-athe.weebly.com/athe-2024.html
From Jenna Bainbridge and Paul Behrhorst of ConsultAbility
D/D.A.T.A.base is now live! D/D.A.T.A.base (Deaf and Disabled Alliance for Theatre Artists) is a resource list and network for self-identified d/Deaf and disabled theatre professionals and organizations that work with and support disabled theatre workers and audiences in the United States. D/D.A.T.A.base will be hosted and maintained by ConsultAbility at www.consultability.org/ddatabase and will be updated regularly. We ask that nondisabled allies do not apply to be included on this list, but are welcome to use the information herein. We acknowledge and recognize that there are other similar lists out there. What makes D/D.A.T.A.base unique is that it is for all disabled theatre artists (and exclusively disabled theatre artists) and is available publicly to anyone who may choose to join or view it. D/D.A.T.A.base is open source, meaning anybody who wants to use it as a resource can. It will be publicly available online to anyone who would like to view it, and anyone can sign up to be listed on it. This list is being compiled by the d/Deaf and disabled theatre community for the benefit of all. Its goal is to increase ACCESS and ensure that d/Deaf and disabled theatre professionals can connect with hiring opportunities as well as with each other. Our intention is for it to be used by the disabled community to find and connect with each other, as well as theatre companies and theatre professionals to use as a hiring tool. This project will be a continual work in progress. We plan to upgrade the formatting ASAP once we have identified a web designer who can take on the work. However, it was more important to get this moving, even in an imperfect form. The important thing is that we are starting to gather this information in one easily accessible space. As such, it currently appears as a google form and spreadsheet. New grantmaking initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with South Arts and in collaboration with the five other U.S. Regional Arts Organizations supports increased opportunities for arts participation. The deadline to submit a Statement of Interest is January 19, 2024.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awards thousands of grants each year to provide diverse opportunities for arts participation. However, historically underserved communities with rich and dynamic cultural identities continue to report lower arts participation rates than other groups. To address these disparities and better understand these dynamics, the NEA, in partnership with South Arts and in collaboration with the five other U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, launched a new grant program, ArtsHERE. ArtsHERE supports organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to equity within their practices and programming and have undertaken consistent engagement with underserved groups/communities. Grants are for specific projects that will strengthen the organization’s capacity to sustain meaningful community engagement and increase arts participation for underserved groups/communities. Grantees have access to peer-learning and technical assistance opportunities designed to share knowledge and build networks. ArtsHERE will award approximately 95 nonprofit organizations with non-matching grants of $65,000 to $130,000. As a pilot program, ArtsHERE will be documented and evaluated by the National Endowment for the Arts to better understand the project activities supported and how grantees approached this work. The deadline to submit a Statement of Interest is January 19, 2024. To learn more, review the full guidelines, and submit a Statement of Interest, visit ArtsHERE.org. Applicant Resources A webinar for potential applicants will take place on Thursday, November 30, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Register in advance. This webinar will be archived. In addition, program staff are available at each Regional Arts Organization to answer questions and will be offering office hours. Visit ArtsHERE.org for more details. The Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC) and Theatre/Practice peer reviewed journal are seeking presenters for a special session at the MATC 2024 Conference in Madison, Wisconsin from March 7-10. These presentations will then be published in volume 14 of Theatre/Practice as a special section of the journal, in conjunction with the text of a special featured presentation by on access by T. S. Banks of Loud 'N' Unchained Theatre Company, Madison Wisconsin.
Submission abstracts are due on December 15, 2023. The complete call, the link to the submission page, and further details on the conference are available at https://matc.us/access-special-session. Additionally, the full text of the cfp is copied below. Any questions or comments can be sent to [email protected]. ********** The Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC) Accessibility Committee and editor of MATC’s peer-reviewed, online journal Theatre/Practice are seeking proposals for presentations or works in progress for a special, featured panel on the topic of access, broadly defined, for the 2024 conference in Madison, Wisconsin and subsequent publication in a Special Section of Theatre/Practice volume 14. Proposals should be appropriate for the symposia covered in the Theatre/Practice publications guidelines: Practice/Production, Pedagogy, and Playwriting. While this special conference session will have limited time for presentations, we highly encourage the submission of proposals related to longer, non-traditional academic format including but not limited to: roundtable discussions, workshops (practical “hands-on” demonstrations), papers, installations, hybrid presentations, interactive theater, devised performances, performance for found space, scripts of various lengths, etc. Even if the work must be presented in an abbreviated fashion during the conference, the full length will be included in the journal publication. Any topic involving access, inclusion, and equity in academic and professional theatres or theatre classrooms of any level is welcome. We particularly encourage work considering how issues of access relate to and are complicated by factors of race, ethnicity, nationality, or language; gender or sexuality; debility or disability; or class, wealth, or education. However, this is not an exhaustive list of access considerations, and any proposal engaging with the complex issues of accessibility and theatre or performance are welcome. Potential questions to consider include: What does access mean for theatre artists and workers, theatre audiences, theatre teachers, theatre students, and all other participants in academic or professional theatre? How do issues of access create, limit, disrupt, or rebuild systems of power and community in and around theatre spaces? What accessibility methods are currently in use now, are currently neglected, or are possible with will and creativity? How does access relate to and engage with questions of representation in writing, casting, season selection, and other production practices? and Why does access matter in theatre’s past, present, and future? Please refer any questions to MATC Accessibility Officer Katya Vrtis at [email protected] or Theatre/Practice journal editor Karin Waidley at [email protected]. Proposals can be submitted here. Deadline for submissions: Friday, December 15, 2023. The Mid-America Theatre Conference commits to advancing intersectional equity, inclusivity, and diversity; creating a conference that is welcoming and fully accessible; and to disrupting the ongoing damage of white supremacy within MATC and the broader academic and theatrical worlds. As part of this effort, we highly encourage a broad range of submissions by presenters or about theatre of historically disenfranchised and underrepresented populations, particularly those of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. To request specific conference accommodations, please contact our Accessibility Officer at [email protected]. MATC prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind, including during all associated meetings, the annual conference sessions, and within publications. For MATC’s full statement on anti-racism, accessibility, and inclusivity please see our website at http://matc.us. |