The German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English announces its 14th Annual Conference (5-8 May 2005). It will be organized by the Chair of English Literature at International University Bremen and held on the university campus.

In our post-national, post-colonial and postmodern world, categories of space and place have become increasingly contested. The capacity to create or “produce space” (Lefebvre) is a quality that all literary and artistic genres inherently share. Theatre and drama, however, takes a particularly challenging role in this respect. As a performative genre, it continuously oscillates between the imagined spaces and places of the text and the real, social, cultural and political spaces and places of its production and reception. Public spaces, market places and the stage as “the other place” create territories that invite exploration and mapping. This conference aims to investigate the ways in which theatre and drama engages with, (re)negotiates and (re)defines the changing nature of contemporary notions of space and place.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• contemporary drama and theatre as creative, commercial, political, cultural space
• space, place, identities and/or gender in contemporary drama and theatre
• alternative spaces and places in contemporary theatre and drama
• contemporary theatre and drama and/in cyberspace
• theatre, globalisation and the marketplace
• modes of exchange in time and place

  Abstracts: If you propose to give a talk (in English, not exceeding 20 minutes), please submit your title and an abstract of 200 words accompanied by a short biographical sketch. In addition to the presentation of papers we particularly invite contributions to alternative forms of discussion: e.g. proposals for workshops on Teaching Contemporary Drama in English and on Theatre Practice/Working with English Drama Groups. Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 December 2004. p>Only paid-up members are eligible to read papers at CDE confereneces. NB.: Membership subscriptions may be taken out or renewed during the conference.