Considering Bodies in Evaluating Taste
Seminar, American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR)
18- 21 November 2004, Las Vegas, NV
Seminar Convenor & Chair:
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Intersection #1:
Bodies, Body Theories, and Broad Theoretical Revisions
*How have drama and performance used bodies to challenge or revise existing theories?
* Are there “ideal” conditions for such broad revision to occur?
* How have audience members’ and critics’ tastes reflected upon these attempted revisions?
“The Loathsome Sight: The Masque of Blackness and the Contagious Body of Woman”
“Wounding Taste Through Wounded Bodies”
“The Postorganic Theatre of Charles L. Mee”
Intersection #2:
Bodies (Re)Defining Taste
* Which bodies have exercised the power to (re)define standards of taste, and how?
* How have the bodies of those who (re)define standards of taste been implicated in those definitions?
* What are the relationship(s) between the bodies defining taste and the bodies being evaluated?
withdrawn from seminar
“Bellydance Superstars: From Scandalous to Mainstream”
“The Politics of Taste: Legitimation and Marginalization of Bodies in Ancient Rome”
Intersection #3:
The Physicality of Drama and Taste
* How does the immediate presence of performing bodies influence assessments of taste?
* What differences arise when evaluating a play as literature to be read as opposed to evaluating it as embodied performance?
* How have theatre artists manipulated the physicality of their bodies to influence audience taste?
“Disfigured Celebrity and Absolute Play in the Embodied Text of Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta”
“Disabling Notions: Beyond Bodies of Difference”
“The Shock of the Real: Bodies in Charles Ludlam’s Salammbo”
Intersection #4:
The Problem of the Real (Tastefully Representing Historical Bodies)
* What problems arise in the performed representation of bodies that are historically specific?
* How does the perceived “match” between historical bodies and performers’ bodies influence evaluations of taste?
* What moral or ethical considerations apply when the bodies being represented are historically located?
“‘This is A Drama. You are Characters.’: The Tourist as Fugitive Slave in Conner Prairie’s ‘Follow the North Star’”
“Anna Deavere Smith’s House Arrest: A Search for American Character In and Around the White House, Past and Present: The Exploit of (Presidential) Bodies”
“Who’s Buried in Billy the Kid’s Tomb and Other Tasteless Questions”
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last modified 1.15.2005