"CITIZEN ARTISTS: THEATRE, CULTURE, and COMMUNITY"

June 26 - July 2, 2005
WASHINGTON D.C., USA
To be held at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, at the University of Maryland, in the north east Washington D.C., suburb of College Park, Maryland.

Hosted by The Department of Theatre and The PhD Program in Theatre and Performance Studies.

Organizer: Professor Franklin J. Hildy (contact information provided below)

THE TOPIC
For the 2005 IFTR/FIRT conference "Citizen Artist: Theatre, Culture, and Community," which is being held just outside of Washington D.C., the center for the performance of political power in the United States, we are inviting the submission of papers presenting all aspects of the research being done on the citizen artist in the theatre. Among the questions to be considered are: What identities do these two terms confer on the individual? To what extent do these identities inform one another and to what extent is there a tension between them? What obligations are explicit or implicit in these identities? How has the concept of the citizen artist been constructed historically in theatre research? Has the idea of a citizen artist been transformed by notions of nationalism, internationalism or multiculturalism? Has this idea been transformed by the process of globalization? What does the concept of a citizen artist mean for a minority community within a dominant culture? What does it mean in a diaspora? Does the proliferation of new technologies have an impact on the concept of the citizen artists in theatre? What complications are added to this concept by the fact that theatre is a cooperative/collaborative art form that must be undertaken by groups of artists? Is the concept of a citizen artist, or of citizen artists, meaningful ones in theatre research?

The conference is interested in the full range of research addressing any of these questions and the many additional questions relating to these issue that are being raised by our modern research methodologies.

HOW TO SUBMIT A PAPER PROPOSAL
To propose a paper, please download the forms at http://www.firt-iftr.org or at http://www.theatre.umd.edu/IFTR. You can also request a form by email or by fax at USA 301-314-9599. A complete proposal consists of your name, your email address, your fax number, your exact mailing address, your affiliation, a 150 word biography for yourself, the title of your paper, and a 200-250 word (maximum) abstract of your proposed paper. Abstracts should be prepared with great care as they will be published in the official program of the conference if your paper is accepted. We cannot accept a completed manuscript of your paper or an abstract that exceeds the 250 word limit. Submissions should be in English or French. Proposed papers must take no longer than twenty minutes to present. This time limit will be carefully enforced in the 2005 conference to ensure that every paper receives an equal opportunity for presentation. If your presentation will require any technical equipment, you need to indicate that on the form. Please email proposals, using your name and an abbreviated paper title in the subject line. You can also mail them, by the October 15 deadline, to the mailing address given below.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
In addition to the papers and panels, the theme of the conference will be explored by Keynote Addresses to be presented by major scholars and artists invited by the organizing committee.

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES TO SUBMIT PAPERS

THE NEW SCHOLARS' FORUM
New scholars (graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars who are early in their careers) are reminded that an important feature of the IFTR/FIRT conference is the New Scholars' Forum. Papers for the New Scholars’ Forum do not need to follow the theme of the conference and are to take no longer than ten minutes to present. While they are shorter than papers in the plenary sessions, the time for discussions and response is longer. To propose a paper for the New Scholars Forum, please download the forms at http://www.firt-iftr.org or at http://www.theatre.umd.edu/IFTR.

WORKING GROUPS
A key feature of IFTR/FIRT conferences are the sessions of the Working Groups. At present, eighteen such groups pursue their own topics and issues their own calls for papers. See http://www.firt-iftr.org under Working Groups for details of how to apply to deliver a paper for one of their sessions.

To ensure ample time to secure visas, we intend to send out notices of acceptance in early December 2004.