Conferences

 

Joint Conference of the American Society for Theatre Research and Theatre Library Association

Theatrical Histories

Sheraton Nashville Downtown Hotel
Nashville, Tennessee
November 1-4, 2012

View the Conference CFP here

 

TLA Plenary - Call for Papers

TLA AT 75: COLLECTING THE FUTURE BY MEDIATING THE PAST

Theatre Library Association will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2012. To honor this milestone, we seek archivists, librarians, practitioners, and scholars to investigate and contextualize the role that performance documentation has played within the larger frame of performing arts history over the past 75 years.

Cultural repositories have long contributed to the significance of performance history. As dynamic mediators between resources and researchers, these collections occupy a complex position which is constantly in flux. Technologies and best practices change, and what might have seemed unimportant yesterday could be most vital today.

Professional choices made by archivists, curators, librarians, and researchers constantly shape and reshape how we document performance history – and how it is transferred to the next generation of audiences, educators, practitioners, students, and scholars.

We invite Proposals to consider the following questions:

  • How should cultural repositories participate in documenting the history of performance?
  • How have new technologies – from microfilm to digitization – transformed the work of performing arts archivists, librarians, and historians?
  • How does the act of documenting performance contribute to creation of meta-performance?
  • How have libraries and archives helped shape changes in theatre and performance studies?
  • What particular challenges do various documentation strategies and media – oral history or born-digital materials – pose for theatre historians?
  • How have the challenges of researching and writing about theatre history transitioned over the past 75 years?

Please submit one-page Proposal by February 15, 2012 to:

Beth Kattelman, Plenary Chair
Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute
Ohio State University
119D Thompson Library
1858 Neil Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210


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Last updated: January 4, 2012