Convenor: Katarzyna Biela (Jagiellonian University)

The session aims to bring together drama, theatre and performance scholars who wish to discuss explorations of the human and post-human on stage. We are not setting a specific time frame – we are rather interested in how the theatre of different epochs represents and redefines personhood and the human condition. We welcome papers on plays that deal with the human body as well as with experiences that make the characters and the audience aware of their individual and collective identity. We are also eager to reflect on crises of selfhood in local and global contexts, as represented in theatre. Furthermore, the session invites papers that consider how plays written before the 21st century are performed and adapted to explore the issues of humanity and individuality in a technology-driven world as well as papers on how playwrights, theatre and performance artists engage with posthumanism. We are likewise happy to receive proposals about more general aspects that determine playwrights and practitioners – publishing and staging policies, socio-cultural and political challenges that result in the rejection and rewriting of plays, theatre workshop practices and other phenomena related to playwriting and theatrical production that correspond to the above-mentioned themes.