Theatre Journal is delighted to announce two upcoming special issues: “Theatre and the Nonhuman” and “Water” with deadlines in January and February 2019. Please contact individual issue editors with questions. We welcome your submissions.
The 2011 appointment of an emergency manager to take over the city of Flint, under Michigan’s controversial “Emergency Manager” law had disastrous consequences for the safety of Flint’s water and the health of Flint’s residents. The water crisis reverberated through the state, as water shut-offs began in Detroit, and protestors sought to block the state from allowing Nestlé to withdraw more water from its well in central Michigan. At the same time, climate change has brought about an increase in extreme weather patterns, leading to more frequent and more intense hurricanes and longer and more severe droughts. It also brings a rise in sea level, that threatens archives and architecture in Venice, and devastates communities such as the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. While water covers three-quarters of the planet, less than 1% is available for use. The United Nations predicts that by 2025, nearly two billion people will not have access to clean water.
We invite scholars to submit essays that examine the relationship between water and performance, broadly defined. Essays might cover a wide range of water topics, including: Desiree Duell’s A Body of Water, Fire on the Water by the Cleveland Public Theatre, plays on water rights in the Global South such as Water! by Komal Swaminathan, Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses, the Vesturport Theatre’s underwater finale to their production of Woyzeck, Juliana Snapper’s performance in the underwater opera You Who Will Emerge from the Flood, drama-in-education and Theatre for Development water projects, creative protests for clean water, the act of water boarding, and water performance as a representation of community identity. What is an ethical use of water in performance and in spectacle? How might theatre be used as a tool for agitating for water justice? What is our relationship to water as artists, theatre scholars, and as human beings?
This special issue will be edited by Theatre Journal co-editor E.J. Westlake, ej.westlake.theatrejournal@gmail.com.
More information: https://jhuptheatre.org/theatre-journal/whats-next
Submissions (6000-9000 words) should be e-mailed to managing editor Bob Kowkabany, bobkowkabany@me.com no later than 1 February 2019.