2020 Annual International Conference of the African Theatre Association (AfTA)

Ageing, Old age, and Disability in African and African Diaspora Performance, Film and Festival

The Department of African Studies, Institute of Asian and African Studies,
Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
23rd-25th July 2020

Appel à communications de l’African Theatre Association dont le congrès annuel se tiendra du 23 au 29 juillet 2020 à la HU-Berlin.
La langue de travail est l’anglais, mais des contributions sur les oeuvres dans toutes les langues littéraires d’Afrique et de sa diaspora sont bienvenues.

Call for Papers and Performances

Researchers, scholars, performing artists and theatre activists are invited to submit an abstract of 300 words and 150 words biography to: conferences@africantheatreassociation.org 

For questions and inquiries about the conference, please contact the conference convener, Dr. Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong, using the above conference email address.

Abstract submission deadline is 14th February 2020. 

Critics of performing arts in Africa and its diaspora have engaged with a wide range of topics in their writing, but there is limited critical engagement with ageing, old age, and disability. It is this dearth of critical discourses and debates on old age in African literary and theatre studies that has inspired the theme of the 2020 annual African Theatre Association Conference. The conference invites scholars, practitioners and activists of performance to focus their contributions on three areas which are mutually exclusive, yet incredibly inclusive, namely: ageing, old age—age(able)ism embodied—and disability. AfTA 2020 aims to create a platform on which these contributions will reflect critically on the role, representation, status and significance of elderly people in performing arts (theatre, oral performance, community theatre, drama, spoken word, epics, films, festivals, dance, music etc…) that are connected to Africa and its diaspora. Further, the conference invites contributions that investigate how ageing is entangled with elderly characters, performers, play directors/directing, dramatists and audiences in the debate of ageism, old age and disability in a bid to explore our understanding of performance, its production and reception. Further, the conference aims to engage critical discussions based on varied understandings, perceptions and definitions of old age, ageing and disability, as well as whether there should be any intersection between these categories in African performances, film and festivals. Employing old age, ageing and disability as conceptual frameworks, the conference will provoke debates on how performances articulate these subjects at critical moments of artistic production and performance. The conference seeks to ask questions including: what are the nuances that either shadow or empower the production of performance based on ageing, old age and disability? What are the cultural and transcultural underpinnings espoused when subjects related to ageing, old age and disability are evoked in the performance culture? How do class, sexuality, gender, ethnicity and nationality affect our understanding of these classifications in the context of performance, film and festival? What are the theoretical and methodological conceptualisations that one might draw from to provoke scholarly debates related to ageing, old age and disability in performance, film and festival?

We invite proposals, which focus, but not limited to the following topics; 

• The representation of ageing, old age and disability
• Understanding of ageing, old age and disability
• Ageism and ableism 
• Resilience and performance
• Gender dynamics and masculinities 
• Queer Identity ageing, old age, and disability
• Intersectionality
• Space, time and ageing, old age and ableism
• Migration, performance and ageing, old age and disability
• Questions of existence and ageing, old age, and disability
• Identity construction 
• Colonial and postcolonial entanglements
• Medialisation of ageing, old age and disability in performance, film and festival
• Corporeality and materiality of ageing, old age and disability
• Imagination of ageing, old age and disability
• Authority and generational conflict
• Gerontocracy
• Politics, legislature and the notion of ageism and disability 
• Customary practices on ageing and performance culture
• Intangible mobility of performances: past, present and future
• The performance of ageism in African culture

Call for Papers AFTA 2020 HU-Berlin

URL de référence : http://www.africantheatreassociation.org/pages/2020

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