ASTR 2008

I've just returned from the annual ASTR conference. It was a strong conference this year, but two events really stand out for me. The first was the conversation on race in the election that was held Friday night. This was, for me, the topic of the week - Barack Obama's electoral victory. What was clear in the comments portion of the night is that so many of us are still processing just what this victory might mean. As Sonja Kuftinec said, she's sort of riding the wave of emotion and still trying to find her critical feet to start to analyze the event more intellectually. This was the sentiment of many. The panel members certainly had their critical wits about them; they each presented very nuanced and interesting looks at the Obama campaign and the Obama victory. They helped to start my own critical thinking. Tricia Rose mentioned that the significance of the Obama campaign and victory are often framed in the language of a Civil Rights Era understanding of race and race relations that no longer exists. That is, we are using an outdated language in the absence of a rhetoric of post-Civil Rights Era racism. This really struck a chord with me. I'm drafting an essay entitled "Barack Obama's Rehtoric of Inclusion" to pinpoint how he is reshaping common language usages - the "universal" we, the "Yes we can" chant, and the frank discussion of race in his speech following the Rev. Wright fall-out - along with his bi-racial identity to create a new way of speaking of, understanding, and (most importantly) addressing policy to fit the current state of race relations.

The other moment took place in my own seminar on Empathy and Activism. Laura and John set up an excellent model for discussion, and it really engaged the audience. We were divided into subgroups, and each member presented about one or two minutes on their individual papers before turning to a summary of the subgroup discussion held via email before the conference. From there, each subgroup posed to the larger group a question that emerged from their discussion. For ten minutes, we as a seminar struggled with each of these questions. Finally, at the end of the subgroup conversations and questions, we opened it up to the audience at large. The room was full and the conversation was lively and engaged. Some of the ideas that came out of that larger discussion, especially a discussion of agonism in the model of Chantal Mouffe, will impact my future work and thinking. That we should create not unity, but a space for dissent is a crucial idea for theatre (and theatre scholarship).