The Philalephia Theater Research Symposium!
I went to the Philadelphia Theater Research Symposium on Friday, to present my paper on Stochastic Aesthetic theory. It’s nothing too fancy–just a straightforward way of tying artistic effects into brain function. Anyway, that’s not important.
What is important is how much Villanova University doesn’t seem to give a crap about its own projects.
Villanova founded the PTRS–I know, because I was there with Fr. David Cregan when he started it. And they’ve been running it for three years now, dragging increasingly large numbers of students, alumni, idependent scholars, and professors to present papers on a wide variety of subjects. Queer Theory, Theater and Linguistics, Abjection, Identity…there was a whole panel on Black Feminist Theater.
I think that this symposium is a great idea, because the best way to become important (aside from actually doing something important) is to start acting important, and just expecting everyone to take you seriously. The PTRS covers both; the more people who present, the more likely you are to come up with “the next big thing,” which lends prestige to the PTRS. Equally, if you just take it seriously, you’ll get more people coming out for it, because it’s clearly a serious thing.
So maybe you can tell me why it is that a number of professors–professors at Villanova, who didn’t have more than a hundred yards to travel–just showed up for their own panels and left? Why they hightailed it right before the panel on Black Feminist Drama (which, frankly, I thought was the most interesting topic)? I don’t understand this.
You know, even up to about 75 years ago, theater practitioners and theorists were fighting with each other all the time? Writing papers, publishing articles and columns in each others’ journals, attending symposia. Do they still do that? Do we still have a theater community that’s actually interested in what other people have to say?
I think that there is a danger here. All human beings tend to want to just do their thing, and be able to ignore everyone else–that’s a natural phenomenon. No one wants to stand by and let someone else be the center of attention, or get all the acclaim, or what have you.
But people used to recognize that it was extremely useful to pretend to be interested in other people–because that makes them feel obligated to pretend to be interested in you. We have begun to let slip this basic law of politic: even when you don’t mean it, fake it. That’s what politeness is.
I see it all over, and it bothers me–a whole community made up of people who each want to go off and do their own thing. Four people doing this, five people doing this, no one challenges each other, engages with each other.
I don’t know what I’m talking about; I’m just procrastinating working on my book.
