Sponsored by the Doctoral Theatre Students Association of the Graduate Center (CUNY).

The goal of this graduate student conference is to address the concept and implications of the theatrical canon, or theatrical canons. We seek diverse and stimulating papers that will investigate how the canon is established, maintained, exported, imported, or challenged.

Questions we seek to address include: How are theatrical canons formed? Is there one theatrical canon? What are the ways in which traditional canons (such as hemispheric, national, or world canons) have been formed? How does the creation of new canons (feminist, queer, multicultural, postcolonial) resist the authority of conventional canons, or reinscribe different hierarchies? What are the political, economic, and/or social implications of upholding or troubling canons? What are some of the ways canons can be demystified, interrogated, or challenged, through pedagogy and praxis? Are canons necessary? What kinds of cultural work does canon-formation do? Are communities of knowledge created through canons, or do they promote intellectual pecking orders by design? How does the "body of knowledge" approach to theatre pedagogy compare with a skills-based approach?

Seeking a critical engagement with the subject of the conference, we invite papers that engage with the notion of the theatrical canons and their implications, especially—though not exclusively—in academia.

Possible topics may include:

* The Inscription of the Western Canon
* National and/or World Canon(s)
* Queer Canon
* Postcolonial Canon
* Feminist Canon
* Multicultural Canon
* Overrepresentation, Focal Points, and Absences in the Canon
* Demystifying the Canon
* Political, Economic, and/or Social Implications of Upholding or Troubling the Canon
* The Complexities of Designing Theatre History Courses

Please, submit your 300-word abstract in a Word document to gradstudentconference2008@yahoo.com by December 1, 2007.