Activate, a post-grad journal about drama, theatre and performance is now accepting papers for their special issue “Solidarity and/in Performance: Rethinking Definitions & Exploring Potentialities.” Academics are invited to submit papers on the topic of solidarity within performance by October 30, 2013. The issue will be published May 2014.

From Activate:

For this special issue of activate, we invite artists, scholars, and postgraduate and early career researchers (especially those in the areas of Live and Performance Art, Theatre, Dance, Choreography, Film and Cinema, Visual Art, Philosophy and Sociology) to submit work based on the theme of performance and solidarity (whether solidarity is defined as above or approached through redefinition or other languages). Submissions might engage with questions such as:

● How can we (re)think solidarity in terms of a performance work or performance more broadly? What might it mean to be in solidarity with the ‘other’, where ‘other’ might be defined as the performer, the artwork, the spectator, the fellow citizen or a country? What forms might solidarity take in these relationships?

● How does the concept of performance act upon the practice of solidarity? How does the concept of solidarity act upon the practice of performance?

● How might solidarity be related to the performance of the politics of space? What different forms of proximity and/or distance with the ‘other’ – e.g. fellow citizen, performer, artwork, country – might enable an ethical encounter?

● We often speak of an Act of Solidarity. Is it possible to be in solidarity with someone without her knowledge or acquiescence? Must solidarity be a mutual condition? Is it a uniform stance, or can there be solidarity in multiplicity and disagreement? How do we perform solidarity? How do we perceive it?

● How does an understanding of solidarity in society or in performance affect the relationship of the individual to a / the collective? What kinds of actions and strategies are produced by such an understanding?

● How can we rethink solidarity so that it can be useful to addressing today’s socioeconomic problems around the world?

Read the full call for papers here.