Theme
This conference explores the concept of "ends" as durational and deeply performative conditions unfolding across different parts of the world. Starting from the premise that we are collectively living through multiple endings–whether ecological, political, social, biological, planetary, or historical—the conference inquires how these endings can be staged, imagined, and dramaturgically negotiated across different scales and geographies. The use of the plural "ends" is intentional. Rather than framing finitude as a singular apocalyptic event, the symposium considers endings as a succession of overlapping ongoing processes entangled to one another. Crucially, the consideration of the symposium extends beyond Western modern human-centric narratives and foregrounds the more-than-human endings of ecocides, mass animal killings, oceanic destructions, and pollutions of air, which are unevenly distributed to non-Western parts of the world that demand critical and ethical attention. More than just aloofly discussing imaginative endings elsewhere, the conference grasps with immediate urgencies happening next door.
The symposium is interdisciplinary by nature as it brings together performance studies, ecocritical thoughts, decolonial politics, queer studies, and many other avenues of inquiries necessary for dislodging the humancentric narrative currently destroying our planet. Collectively, the symposium examines the human paradox that while contemporary societies are increasingly able to more accurately calculate and predict the endings, they are nonetheless inept at preventing them. We consider that one of the reasons for this failure is due to the lack of “collective imagination of ends” that are not shared among like-minded international scholars and artists. For this reason, through the symposium, we intend to develop sustained dialogues, nurture shared imaginations, and cultivate worthwhile alternative futures with international scholars and artists through the lens and practice of performance studies. Ultimately, the conference invites participants to collectively rethink "ends" by building networks of shared inquiry and imagination around what it means to end, and continue ending, together with others.
Conference Organizers
- Luca Domenico Artuso, University of Antwerp
- Marco Caracciolo, University of Gent
- Felipe Cervera, University of California, Los Angeles
- Renata Gaspar, i2ADS/ESMAE, Porto
- Sozita Goudouna, Goldsmiths, University of London
- Kyoko Iwaki, University of Antwerp
- Eero Laine, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
- Sarah Lucie, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Juliana Moraes, University of Campinas
- Evan Moritz, University of Toronto
- Jonas Schnor, University of Antwerp
- Theresa Spielmann, University of Antwerp
- Christel Stalpaert, University of Gent
- Aneta Stojnić, Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, New York
- Nilüfer Ovalıoğlu Gros, Paris Sciences et Lettres University- National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts