Proposed Panel for the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) Conference, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Edmonton, 2000. (Negotiations are currently underway to make this a joint panel with the ACTR/ARTC meeting.)
 

The performance, production, and reception of work by Native North American women artists and writers have received increasing amounts of attention over the past three decades. This panel looks specifically at the complexities and contradictions that shape the works of these women and considers how various Native North American female artists—for example, E. Pauline Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal, Buffy St. Marie, Alanis Obomsawin, and Monique Mojica—continue to challenge and expand the concept of performance studies. What kinds of work by Native North American women get produced, where, why are they produced, and how is the work received? In particular, how do Native North American women redefine and expand the notion of what constitutes "performance"?

Papers may choose to explore, but are not limited to, the following areas of inquiry:

• What is different or unique about performance by or about Native North American women (as opposed to Native men or non-Natives)? Conversely what continuities between Native and non-Native performance traditions might be found?
• What aesthetics exist or are being developed that bring together or differentiate the works of Native women artists?
• What roles do education and healing play in Native women's performance?
• What is the relationship between performance and voice in these works?
• How are tribal differences manifested in performance?
• How does cultural appropriation (especially the use of Native performance elements in non-Native controlled production) shape constructions of Native identity and sexuality?
• How do white feminist models of performance help or hinder studies of Native women's performance? What alternative (Native) models do female Native performers offer?

Please send to one of the organizers listed below three copies of papers (12-13 pages) or proposals (300-500 words), accompanied by three copies of a 100-word abstract and a 50-word biographical sketch, before November 15th, 1999. A disk copy or e-mail attachment of the proposal or paper is also required so that it can be forwarded on to the ACCUTE office in a timely fashion. (Note: Proposals should clearly indicate the originality or the scholarly significance of the proposed paper, the line of argument, the principal texts that the paper will address, and the relationship of the paper to existing scholarship on the topic.)

Organizers: