III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AMERICAN THEATRE AND DRAMA

After two very successful editions hosted by the University of Málaga, the beautiful city of Cádiz will be the site of the III International Conference on American Theatre and Drama.

Ever since the Greeks, drama and violence have rarely been far from one another, at least within the Western dramatic tradition. The staging of violence, apart from being a representation of one of the most powerful and recurrent of human traits, can also be a reflection of larger social and cultural forces. As a matter of fact, the existence and continuity of a nation such as the United States cannot be adequately explained without a study of the use/abuse/containment of violence and, among others, its representation on stage. Serious drama in America has resorted to literal or figurative violence to pass judgment on an unfair, violently repressive society; to denounce the self-deceiving drives of many individuals; to expose the brutalizing effects of traditional family patterns and the violent exclusion of (non-mainstream or otherwise) individuals from the American Dream; or to (violently) break with inherited theatrical forms and open up new avenues of artistic experimentation. We believe that an exploration of the role of violence in American theatre and drama will result in fruitful and fresh insights into a dramatic tradition which has rarely been approached from this angle.

Among the specific issues which the conference hopes to address –always through their representation on the American stage– are:

- Theatrical theories of violence (Grotowski, Artaud, The Living Theatre,…).
- The history of violence. Violence in history.
- The aesthetics of violence. Theatrical strategies for the representation of violence.
- Collateral effects: the violence of conflict as suffered by both the invader and the invaded, the winner and the loser, the soldier and the civilian.
- Violence experienced (or inflicted on) those of other gender, racial, sexual groups.
- Institutional, social and structural violence.
- Violence in the workplace: abuse, mobbing, harassment, bullying.
- Psychological abuse. The psychology of the abuser; the effect on the abused. Justification of the abuser. The abused as guilty.
- Linguistic excess as violence. The strategy of silence.
- Audience reaction to violence on stage.
- The failure of the American Dream and the subsequent generation of violence.

Among the keynote speakers that will honor the conference are Cheryl Black, John Frick, Bob Vorlicky and Barbara Ozieblo. Playwright Paula Vogel has also confirmed her participation in the conference.