Amfiteater Journal of Performing Arts Theory
Academic Symposium

Comedy Survival

Ljubljana

October 5-6, 2023

Call for Submissions

In 1961, George Steiner finally buried tragedy. After centuries of crisis and the slow death of what was once the most prestigious dramatic genre, even the most persistent defenders of the traditional genre division had to admit that the Aristotelian dichotomy no longer existed on modern stages. The process of its theoretical abolition (of course, in theatrical practice the division was never entirely consistent), which was first begun by the Romantics in their reaction to classicism, was completed by the last of the modernists, the absurd dramatists. By emphasizing tragicomedy and the grotesque, they successfully consigned the binary opposition of tragedy-comedy, which had become the most recognizable visual symbol of theater with its iconography, to the dustbin of literary history. Nevertheless, even a very cursory look at the repertoires of theaters in the third millennium quickly shows that at least comedy survived the attempt to abolish it. Although it is supposed to be replaced in the postmodern environment by the more elusive genre
texts, comedy, even that which is described in theatre lists without an adjective and which is only interested in entertaining the audience, still regularly appears on the stage. Moreover, in many respects comedy has remained more or less unchanged since the first plays of Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus and Terence. Even avant-garde authors and experimental theatres, such as Charles Ludlam or 26000 couverts, keep returning to well-tried comic characters and forms. Does this mean that there is simply no symmetry in dramatic genres? If Jacques Derrida is right when he says that “there are no texts without genre”, and immediately adds “that such participation does not yet imply belonging”, then the persistence of comedy could be explained simply as a consequence of the fact that it is already interested in participation in principle – the participation of the audience with laughter – and that it never seeks to belong. Comedy is a genre that exists only here and now, that its audience can fully understand only in a certain historical moment and cultural context. In all other cases, it necessarily adapts: either to linguistic differences or to a foreign environment and new social conditions. And that is precisely why it is so well prepared for survival. While even such popular and important literary genres as tragedy or epic have slowly lost their validity and often eventually even disappeared, comedy continues to successfully resist developmental pressures.

This year's Amphitheater Symposium will therefore primarily be interested in the following research questions:
• How did theater comedy react to the emergence of new media (film, radio, television, internet)?
• What's really new in new forms of comedy like sketch, standup, and improv?
• Is comedy necessarily liberating, or is it actually always defending mediocrity?
• Did the decline of modern rationalism and Enlightenment ideas affect the development of comedy?
• Will the culture of cancellation ("cancel culture") also succeed in canceling the sense of humor?
• Can comedy survive a stage crash?
• How does comedy deal, or should it deal, with difficult topics and content?
• How is social criticism and/or political activism manifested through comedy?
• Does the comic subject change or remain static?
• Normalization of comic characters in modern drama
• Types of comedians in modern Slovenian comedy
• Intimate and social in contemporary Slovenian comedy
• Philosophical and sociological views on comedy
• How is the attitude towards the body and the physical manifested in grotesque theatre/drama?
• What is the modern grotesque?
• Is there still an interest in the grotesque today or is it a category committed to romantic (Wolfgang Kayser) and (post)modernist understanding of the world (carnivalism - Bakhtin)?

We invite researchers and practitioners to join us with contributions on the proposed topics or expand them with their own views at the international scientific symposium to be held in Ljubljana on October 5-6, 2023.
The working languages of the symposium will be Slovenian and English.
Please send us the abstract and title of your paper (up to 250 words) with a short CV (up to 120 words) in Slovenian and English no later than May 10, 2023 to the email address amfiteater@slogi.si. You can also contact this address with any additional questions.

We will notify you by June 1, 2023, whether your contribution has been accepted into the symposium program.

All authors will be invited to write articles (in Slovenian or English) based on their contributions, which will be published in the first issue of the journal Amfiteater in 2024. All articles will be peer-reviewed.

Symposium leader: Jure Gantar

Preparatory committee: Jure Gantar, Mateja Pezdirc Bartol, Blaž Lukan, Maja Murnik, Gregor Moder, Gašper Troha, Miha Čepeljnik and Tara Milčinski

Contact:
Maja Murnik
Slovenian Theater Institute (SLOGI)
Mestni trg 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
E amfiteater@slogi.si
T +386 31 504 432

The symposium is organised by:

Slovenian Theater Institute (SLOGI) is a national public institution founded in 2014
as the legal successor of the Slovenian Theater Museum. The institute's mission is the development of theater culture and the promotion of theater art, which is realized through research, study, interpretation, promotion, preservation, documentation and presentation of Slovenian theater culture, theater heritage and theater art in the Slovenian and international space.

Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television of the University of Ljubljana performs educational, artistic and research work in the field of theatre, radio, film and television. From its founding in 1945 until 1975, it operated as an independent higher education institution with a rector, after which it became a member of the University of Ljubljana. Amphitheater is a scientific journal that publishes original articles in the field of performing arts in a wide range from dramatic theatre, drama, dance, performance to hybrid arts. Authors can analyze the forms and contents of works of art and artistic phenomena from the field of performing arts, their history, present and future, as well as their relationship to other artistic fields and the wider (social, cultural, political...) context.

The symposium is being prepared in cooperation with UL AGRFT within the framework of the research program Theater and inter-art research (P6-0376), which is co-financed by the Public Research Agency of the Republic of Slovenia from the state budget.