>
>Subject: CFP: Performing Reparation (11/15/05; journal issue)
>
>From: "Diaz, Robert" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>CALL FOR PAPERS
>(please circulate widely)
>
>Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory
>PERFORMING REPARATION: PRACTICE, METHODOLOGY, AND PROCESS
>
>Co-Editors: =20
>Joshue Chambers-Letson        Robert G. Diaz
>Performance Studies           English
>New York University           The CUNY Graduate Center
>=20
>Reparation as a concept is laden with multivalent cultural significance. =
>If
>the most basic definition of reparation is an act that mends, repairs, =
>and
>restores a loss, rupture, or break, what other complex ways has =
>reparation
>been defined and enacted, particularly by feminists, queers, and people =
>of
>color? Melanie Klein, for example, defines the act of making reparation =
>as a
>psychic process of making good injuries =97 both real and in phantasy =
>for
>which we remain unconsciously guilty and in pain =97 towards a sustained
>seeking of pleasure. What would an act of reparation look like and what
>would such an act be capable of doing? Which is to say, what are the
>performative effects of reparation? What is the performance value of
>reparation? Assuming that reparation has often been a method for =
>surviving
>and living against elision, for asserting a presence deserving of
>recognition, or for coping with insurmountable losses, what are the =
>other
>potentials for reparation?
>=20
>Our first concern in this issue is to perform an in-depth inquiry into =
>the
>many ways that reparation is defined as an individual and collective
>process. For example, in relation to the traumas of geopolitical =
>violence,
>=93reparations=94 as a political and economic concept has been linked to =
>the
>emergent demands by marginalized and/or subjugated groups for
>acknowledgement and redress of abuses. An example of this paradigm might =
>be
>the activist labor of Korean and Filipino =93comfort women=94 forced =
>into sex
>slavery during the occupation of Japan during World War II. In turn, for =
>the
>individual subject, how might reparation manifest itself as a personal =
>and
>everyday process of reintegrating a fragmented self into a =
>not-necessarily
>unified =93whole=94 or totality (both socially and internally)? Second, =
>we
>consider the ways in which reparation has been manifested in the work =
>and
>practices of various groups and individuals including artists, =
>activists,
>and intellectuals. By this, we might consider the performance work and
>publications of a group like the Guerilla Girls, a collective that has
>sought to restore the place of unacknowledged women artists to the =
>=93canon=94
>of art history. Our third primary concern is to consider the utility of
>reparative acts and readings of reparation to changing the conditions of
>possibility in our critical acts. This is to say, what are the protocols
>that critical theory has come to abide by, and how the reparation as
>critical methodology take us down new critical avenues: politically,
>artistically and intellectually? What means might various approaches to =
>and
>enactments of reparation serve?  How and when is reparation productive?
>
>This issue of Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory =
>addresses
>the above concerns about the performativity and utility of reparation =
>(as a
>practice, methodology, and process). We invite papers concerned with
>reparative performances and acts as well as papers that provide =
>reparative
>approaches to critical inquiry, especially in relation to the work of
>feminists, people of color, and queers. What are the potentials for
>reparation and what might some of the limits be? Can reparation be =
>employed
>(or co-opted) as a means of insincere alleviation, substitution, or
>displacement? How have groups and individuals engaged in reparative acts =
>and
>processes? How do different and sometimes contradictory notions of
>reparation work in relation to each other? How do theoretical
>conceptualizations of reparation function relational to practical or
>material uses of the concept? We encourage contributions from a range of
>disciplinary approaches, including but not limited to performance =
>studies,
>literature, American studies, psychoanalysis, economy, law, art history,
>cultural studies, women=92s studies, as well as other activist or =
>artistic
>approaches to, or representations of, reparation.
>
>Possible Topics could include: Melanie Klein and the theory of =
>reparation,
>feminism and psychoanalysis, anti-oedipal psychoanalysis, =
>economic/political
>reparations (including the Japanese-American internment of WWII, =
>slavery,
>Comfort Women, the Holocaust, etc.), reparative feminist performance, =
>health
>and economic policy, the law, reparative criticism, queer theory. =
>Specific
>artists, performance artists, figures and writers whose work could be =
>read
>as reparative or necessarily in need of a reparative approach could =
>include=20
>but are not limited to: the Guerilla Girls, Le Tigre, Theresa Hak Kyung =
>Cha,=20
>Billie Holiday, Ana Mendieta, Yoko Ono, Oprah, Eve Sedgwick, Joan =
>Riviere,=20
>Sandra Day O=92Connor, Kara Walker, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Kane.
>
>
>Essays should be approximately 5000-6000 words in length and should =
>adhere
>to the Chicago Manual of Style. Please send completed essays as MSWord
>attachment to both of the editors at [log in to unmask] and =
>[log in to unmask]
>by November 15, 2005. Expressions of interest prior to the deadline are
>encouraged.=20

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