*CFP* "FROM THE SCENIC ESSAY TO THE ESSAY-EXHIBITION. EXPANDING THE ESSAY FORM IN THE ARTS AFTER LITERATURE AND FILM", S:PAM CONFERENCE

From the Scenic Essay to the Essay-Exhibition. Expanding the Essay Form in the Arts after Literature and Film

S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media)

Ghent University (Belgium)

27th-29th of April 2022

 

 

More than 400 years after the publication of Michel De Montaigne’s Essais, the enduring afterlife of the essay form attests how this 'heretical form’ (Adorno) not only continues to challenge the literary conventions but also transgresses the borders of the literary field to venture into other artistic disciplines. The genre of the essay film is the most prominent example of this dissemination but the expansion has set out into other areas as well. Engaging with this emerging prominence, From the Scenic to the Essay-Exhibition welcomes scholars and art practitioners to present their academic and artistic engagements with the essay form.

Unlike the realm of literature and film, the essay form in the field of performing arts, visual arts and curatorial practices has received only modest attention. Therefore, From the Scenic to the Essay-Exhibition aims to continue the mapping of the essay form in various artistic practices. By doing so, the conference aspires to enrich the existing vocabulary of theatre, performance, and curatorial studies and to resolve hiatuses between the existing theories on the essay. The conference’s emphasis on the essay form beyond the field of literature and film by no means that scholars or artists operating in these fields are not welcome. On the contrary, by assembling a wide variety of perspectives on the essay form this conference aspires to create a productive dialogue between more established fields of study on the essay and the new articulations presented during this gathering.

By its preference for a dialogue of ideas, the observational, the display of a process of thinking, a high degree of subjectivity and (self-)reflexivity, speculation and ambivalence, the essay form could resonate with a wide array of artworks and artistic practices. The history and the dissemination of the essay attests how these attributes assisted the essay as a key agent in challenging conventional modes of expression, representation, and knowledge production. By welcoming artists, art practitioners, curators and theorists operating outside the academic realm, the conference aims to host a productive and enriching dialogue between those explicitly committed to the essay form and those (unintentionally) engaging with the essay’s hallmarks. Within this context, we welcome submissions that address the essay form from a multifaceted understanding as emergent in theatre, dance, performance, visual arts, and curatorial practices. These submissions include but are by no means limited to:

• The essay form within the field of theatre, performance, and dance
• The essay form within documentary theatre
• The essay form as a dramaturgical tool or method
• The essay form and performativity/the performative dimension of the essay
• The staging of essays
• The essay form and scenography
• The essay form or the essayistic as a curatorial mode or curatorial practice
• The essay-exhibition
• Essayistic spectatorship
• The essay form and installation art
• The lecture performance as essayistic practice
• Audio-essays
• Essayistic storytelling
• The essayist as first-person narrator on stage
• The essay form in exilic, diasporic, or transnational contexts
• The essay form in the Anthropocene
• The essay form within autoethnography or autotheory

We accept:

• Individual paper-presentation (15/20-minute presentation)
• Thematic panels (max. 3 presentations of 15/20 minutes)
• Other presentation formats: performances, workshops, …

All proposals (max. 350 words, including a short biographical note of 100 words) should be addressed to essayconference2022@Ugent.be by 1 October 2021. For further information about the conference, send an email to Jasper.Delbecke@Ugent.be. If an official invitation is required earlier for research funding purposes, please contact the convenor to ensure that you submit your abstract as early as possible.