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Galway and Irish Writing

‘’Gender and space in Irish theatre: past, present and future (im)possibilities’’

Panel Chair - M. Enrica Cerquoni, University College Dublin Drama Studies Centre

Gender roles, as a set of behaviours which we perform in our everyday life, have found in theatre a uniquely powerful medium for exploring and subverting the standardised patterns established by a patriarchal culture and politics. The use of theatrical space becomes, from this perspective, fundamental. The very shape a play gives to its theatrical space is reflective of its views on the relationship between the sexes and on the position of women and men in society. The connection in theatrical representation between location and categories of gender identification is not ideologically innocent and deserves more critical attention.

The aim of this panel is to bring together two underrepresented fields of analysis which have been recently re-discovered in theatrical discourses and analysis of performance. Yet, more often than not, gender and space are tackled as separate issues rather than linked matters of contestation. Therefore, the panel invites proposals for papers which address, through a variety of perspectives and approaches, Irish theatrical works, preferably from the end of nineteenth century to the present day, to explore how spatial dynamics and the politics of gender interact and engage to reiterate, interrogate, transform hegemonic boundaries of representation and strategies of power and exclusion.

As the panel seeks to open a fluid, invigorating and heterogeneous debate on unmarked areas of enquiry in Irish theatrical discourse, it encourages contributors to examine the connection between gender and space in relation to any aspect of theatre practice: textual practice; visual and audial aspects of space in performance; realisation of theatrical space in devised theatrical pieces.

Mária Kurdi (Pecs) Spatialising the Renewal of Female Subjectivity in Marie Jones’s Women on the Verge of HRT

Mark Schreiber, (International University Bremen, Germany)‘Bedbound Beauty Queen’s. Negotiating Space and Gender in Contemporary Irish Drama’

Carmen Szabó (University College Dublin) The Liminality of the House as Political Space in Stewart Parker's Pentecost

Original Call for Papers

I am looking for papers for Iasil 2004 conference to be held at the National University of Ireland, Galway for the following panel: 'Gender and Space in Irish theatre: past, present and future (im)possibilities'.

Gender roles, as a set of behaviours which we perform in our everyday life, have found in theatre a niquely powerful medium for exploring and subverting the standardised patterns established by a patriarchal culture and politics. The use of theatrical space becomes, from this perspective, fundamental. The very shape a play gives to its theatrical space is reflective of its views on the relationship between the sexes and on the position of women and men in society. The connection in theatrical representation between location and categories of gender identification is not ideologically innocent and deserves more critical attention.

The aim of this panel is to bring together two underrepresented fields of analysis which have been recently re-discovered in theatrical discourses and analysis of performance. Yet, more often than not, gender and space are tackled as separate issues rather than linked matters of contestation. Therefore, the panel invites proposals for papers which address, through a variety of perspectives and approaches, Irish theatrical works, preferably from the end of nineteenth century to the present day, to explore how spatial dynamics and the politics of gender interact and engage to reiterate, interrogate, transform hegemonic boundaries of representation and strategies of power and exclusion.

As the panel seeks to open a fluid, invigorating and heterogeneous debate on unmarked areas of enquiry in Irish theatrical discourse, it encourages contributors to examine the connection between gender and space in relation to any aspect of theatre practice: textual practice; visual and audial aspects of space in performance; realisation of theatrical space in devised theatrical pieces.

This panel will consist of four speakers, with papers of 15-18 minutes in duration. Please send proposals (400 words max) by e-mail only, to be received by 7th January, 2004 to:

maria.cerquoni@ucd.ie

IASIL 2004 is hosted by The National University of Ireland, Galway