Call for Papers
Sixteenth-Century Drama of the Virreinato de Nueva España and the Novo Mundo do Brasil: The New World in Performance
The Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society and American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese invite papers that examine theatrical and ritual performances that took place during the first century of European and Amerindian contact in the New World colonies. The organizers seek work that addresses linguistic, religious, and performative encounters as they manifested in translations of Spanishautos sacramentales and comedias, enactments from indigenous and Christian festivals and rituals, songs and musicianship, performance environments, and Jesuit and Franciscan catechistic drama. We encourage submission of papers that focus on histories, texts, spaces, performers, audiences, and material cultures that have yet to be examined in theatrical contexts, especially at the intersection of Spanish and Portuguese colonial culture and indigenous practices.
Areas of interrogation might include (but are not limited to):

• How were peninsular plays adapted, translated, and performed for colonized subjects?
• How did indigenous performers use European texts to express traditional beliefs and practices?
• What kinds of hybrid forms were produced in the confrontation between indigenous and European languages and practices?
• Are there new ways to discuss foundational theories such as autoethnography, double mistaken identity, resistance, and transculturation by way of performance events?

Researchers from Spanish, Portuguese, Indigenous Studies, History, Theatre, Comparative Literature, Art History, Musicology, Anthropology, Ethnography, Medieval and Renaissance studies and related disciplines are encouraged to submit English language proposals for consideration. Please email the title and 300-word abstract of your paper to Dr. Christopher Swift at cswift@citytech.cuny.edu by MARCH 15.