Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English, at Vierzehnheiligen, 3-6 June 2004.
Edition of the proceedings volume.
Drama and theatre are complex forms of shaping the practices and languages of collective memory and identity. In this way, they are interventionist and counter-hegemonic, making visible ideologies of nationalism, racism, and colonialism. The conference wants to ask when and where the staging of displacement, exile and diaspora has helped to produce new identities and where it can (at best) be part of a post-traumatic process of healing. This makes it necessary to look at displacement from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. The individual papers will address forms, issues and the social and political context in which drama and theatre of displacement, exile and diaspora is written and performed. Topics include, for example:

• collective cultural identities and/or isolation and marginalization
• the cultural memory of displacement, exile, and diaspora
• traumas and dramas: violence and power in plays of displacement, exile, and diaspora
• history plays of displacement, exile, and diaspora
• negotiations of cultural difference in dramatic representations of displacement, exile and diaspora in contemporary African, American, and Caribbean theatre and drama
• the Black and Asian experience in contemporary British or American theatre and drama
• migration in contemporary Europe (e.g. the Irish diaspora on the Continent)

Confirmed guest speakers include: Julia Pascal (UK), Michelene Wandor (UK), Carlos Morton (U.S.A.), Jorge Huerta (U.S.A.) and Fatima Dike (South Africa)
The Proceedings volume has been published as no. 12 of the CDE series, by Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2005.