Call for abstracts: Embodied Voices, Milburn House, University of Warwick

24^th-25^thApril 2025

In the wake of global movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, questions around the inclusion of oppressed voices and whose body is ‘allowed’ to perform what role sit at the heart of the performing arts community (including poetry, theatre, music and dance). Whether in discussions about colour-blind casting in Hollywood or major opera houses deciding if canonical stage works that problematically depict marginalised people should still be performed, the cultural implications of giving voice to marginalised experiences and ideas through performance are more important now than ever. To date these issues have remained largely untouched by philosophy, yet philosophy can bring important and distinctive understanding to the debate through ethical and aesthetic analysis of performance and embodied voice: What happens when artists invoke other voices in their work, and how does this shape the work’s reception? What are the implications of performing someone else’s lived experience, such as a work that refer to another’s body?

 

Keynote speakers:

• Jeanette Bicknell (Philosopher of aesthetics, Toronto)
• Ann Cahill (Professor of Philosophy, Elon University) with Christine Hamel (actor, voice and text specialist, scholar and director, Boston University)
• David Davies (Professor of Philosophy, McGill University)
• Jenny Sealey (theatre director, actor and artistic director of Graeae Theatre Company)

 

We invite abstracts of 500-1000 words on the topic of Embodied Voices for a 20 minute presentation. We welcome presentations from both philosophers and practitioners of the performing arts that address the ethics and politics of voice and body in performance such as:

 

1. What do we mean by the ‘authentic voice/performance’?
2. Are some works restricted to certain performers (in virtue of the contribution their body makes to the work)? Are there cases in which reperformance of a work by another causes harm?
3. Who ought to have ownership of a particular work? Whose permission is needed to re-perform a particular work?
4. To what extent do the performing arts contribute to moral and political education?
5. Does an audience have a responsibility to listen in a particular way, and what would this entail? Can an artist demand this?
6. How do bodies mean and how do audiences ‘read’ them? Can words and actions be disentangled from one’s voice and body (for instance, can another achieve the same meaning by imitating the gestures of another?)

 

Abstracts should be sent tok.d.simecek@warwick.ac.ukby10^thJanuary 2025. Speakers will be notified of decisions by 31^stJanuary 2025.

There will be no conference fee.