Performance in the Age of Transparency: Biopoltics, Biotechnology and Biogenetics (ASTR 2016-WORKING GROUP)
Type: Call for Papers
Date: June 1, 2016
Location: Minnesota, United States
Subject Fields: Psychology,
Popular Culture Studies, Philosophy, History of Science, Medicine, and
Technology, Theatre & Performance History / Studies
RATIONALE:
This
working session will explore intersections of performance and theatre
with biopolitics, biotechnology, and biogenetics by looking at the ways
in which life increasingly resides in a transversal realm of
indistinction, which produces live (i.e. concrete and tangible)
consequences within digital and embodied environments. The working
session seeks to understand what theatre and performance studies can
learn from a critical inquiry into biopolitics, biotechnology, and
biogenetics to examine ways in which contemporary ideology gravitates
towards concerns regarding transparency. By drawing on the etymology of
transparency—from the Latin trans- “through” and parere “come
in sight, appear”—we propose to investigate transparency and its
absence as it occurs across wider areas of study which may include
cinema, visual and performance arts, video gaming, and digital
humanities.
As contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han claims
“such insistence on transparency is occurring in a society where the
meaning of ‘trust’ has been massively compromised,” this working session
invites participants that aim to untangle how transparent biopolitics
permeate our everyday and how transparency has become a major political
means of power, empowerment and disempowerment. From governmental
performances to activism, from CCTV cameras to airport body-scans, from
the online response of the Paris attacks to the propaganda of terrorist
organisations such as ISIS, from Wikileaks to Vatileaks, from
whistleblowers to Anonymous—what is at stake is the problematic issue of
transparency, that is, of what our “right to know,” or “not to know”
actually means.
Further, for bio-transgenic corporealities—from
biomaterial markets to Bodyworlds—the stakes of transparency are also
rooted in the passage of biomaterials across, beyond, and outside of
bodies in biotechnological transformations. The trans-actions of power
in the practices of biotechnology—including gene mapping, cloning,
embryonic stem cell research, and blood and tissue sample collection—are
embedded in questions concerning transparency, namely the mapping of
the human genome, the rights to biomaterials, the profits and markets
associated with biomaterials and the apparent reduction of life to
scientific codes of identification through information.
Through paradigms of transparency and opacity, the working session will aim to pose and examine questions concerning:
How are boundaries of bodies produced, contested, transformed, abstracted and managed?
How
are the transpositions of power embedded in the blood, fat, tissues,
cells, DNA, and other bio-materials moved through multiple performing
embodiments and contexts?
How might the paradigms of
transparency-opacity inform biopolitics of capitalist economies and
definitions of value for bio-materials and bio-information?
GOALS:
The
main aim of the working group is to further engage with the
conference’s theme “trans-“ by proposing a close investigation of the
critical concept of “transparency” through biopolitics, biotechnology
and biogenetics.
How are the biological boundaries of bodies
produced, contested, transformed, and managed in our biotech age; how
might performance practices draw attention to and stimulate discussion
around the ethics and politics of biotechnology; how does the
technologically-enabled mobility of bio-materials participate in a
capital economy; and how might performances reveal and/or conceal
biotechnological transpositions of power embedded in the blood, fat,
tissues, cells, DNA, and other bio-materials that move through multiple
performing embodiments and performance contexts.
In order to
make more apparent some of the daily performances of transparency, group
members will be invited to join a field trip to visit urban sites and
architectures within Minneapolis’ design narrative of transparency: from
the Minneapolis Central Library to the Weisman Art Museum, from the
glass curtain wall of the IDS Center to its Crystal Court. Please note
that it is likely that this activity will take place before
registration, on the day that the conference begins, in order not to
coincide with any of the scheduled panels of ASTR.
In addition
the working group welcomes participants from all disciplines, including
(but not limited to) critical theory, political philosophy, performance
studies, cultural studies, theater studies, anthropology, sociology,
geography, visual culture and digital humanities. We would welcome
proposals from established scholars, independent scholars, and
post-graduate students.
Sharing the ethos of ASTR conference, this
working group invites inter-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary and
trans-disciplinary approaches. For the working group we propose the
following schedule:
1: Scholars submit up to 500-word abstracts. Interested participants will submit a 500-word abstract with a short bio.
2: Upon acceptance, scholars will develop 10-12 page papers, which will be circulated to the group.
3: All participants will read their colleagues’ papers.
4: Participants are grouped according to interests and to complement each other.
5:
An online platform will be arranged for participants’ intellectual
exchange throughout the process (i.e. from commenting on each other’s
abstract to the paired dialogues ahead of the working session).
6: Interest groupings dialog about how the others’ work fit into the session’s theoretical framework.
7: The working session will focus on inciting theoretical dialogue amongst individuals’ research.
Layout:
Hour one:
Each participant of the working session will offer a short provocation
of the main points of their papers to the group and open audience.
Hour two: Group discussion on the overall issue of transparency in the intertwining of biopolitics, biotechnology and biogenetics.
Hour three:
Workshop exploration and discussion of the field trip alongside
evaluating potential publishing directions for the working group to
consider.
Deadline for submissions: 1 June, 2016
Submission via this link: http://www.astr.org/page/16_WGSubmissions
Contact Info:
Working Group Conveners:
Dr. Gabriella Calchi Novati - Training Candidate, ISAP ZURICH
Dr. Malin Palani - Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, Macalester College mpalani@macalester.edu
Dr. Andrew Wilford - Senior Lecturer In Theatre, Theatre Department, University Of Chichester