Download first international women and war conference

FIRST INTERNATIONAL
WOMEN AND WAR
CONFERENCE
July 3-5, 2012
Hydra, Greece
WWW.RYERSON.CA/THEATRESCHOOL/CONFERENCE.HTML
WELCOME TO WOMEN AND WAR
The Women & War Project is designed to investigate the experience
of women in war, past and present, using Greek drama as a means of
inciting public discourse. A team of social scientists and renowned
theatre, dance, and music artists is working together to stimulate
a global examination of women and war by creating and touring
three new theatrical productions performed in repertory. We are also
questioning if new treatments for war-related psychological traumas
such as PTSD could include theatre. The new versions of the ancient
Greek plays and myths have been written by three leading female
playwrights: Velina Hasu Houston representing the United States;
Judith Thompson representing Canada; and Timberlake Wertenbaker
representing Britain. The entire team of over forty artists, researchers,
and military personnel hopes to examine the complexities of women
within/around war this multi-national approach to artistic creation.
Dr. Candice Monson (Left)
Peggy Shannon, Director (Right)
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: DAY 1, JULY 3
8:30AM – 9:00AM
Registration
Snacks and refreshments will be served
9:00AM – 9:15AM
Welcome
Corinna Seeds
9:15AM – 10:15AM
Keynote Speakers
Peggy Shannon, M.F.A. : “The Women in War Project” (USA)
Candice Monson, Ph.D. : “Stronger Where Broken: Psychological Treatments
for Traumatic Stress” (CANADA/USA)
10:30AM – 11:00PM
Lecture/Presentation
Dr. Yael Zelda Feiler: “The (military) discourse and me” (ISRAEL)
Natasha Davis: “The embodiment of war and exile in Natasha Davis’ trilogy:
Rupture, Asphyxia and
Suspended” (BRITAIN)
11:10AM – 12:15PM
Panel Discussion
Female Sacrifice
Moderator: Dr. Cynthia Ashperger
Dr. Mariko Tanaka: “Anti-war Messages in Contemporary Plays by Women with
Particular Emphasis on Velina Hasu Houston’s The Intuition of Iphigenia and Moira
Buffini’s Welcome to Thebes”
Dr. Naomi Tonooka: “The Structure of Sacrifice: Iphigenia at Aulis” (JAPAN)
Dr. Catherine Redpath: “Textual Trauma: Reading ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ in Sofi Oksanen’s Purge” (ENGLAND)
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: DAY 1, JULY 3
12:30PM – 13:30PM
Panel Discussion
Voices in Performance and Protest
Moderator: Peggy Shannon
Irene Pauzer: “Vocal Crossroads: an investigation into vocal approaches of
the North American trained voice with the cultural and imaginative scope of the
amphitheatres of Greek Classical Theatre” (CANADA)
Rebecca Liddiard: “Body - Mind - Spirit: The Production of Truth” (CANADA)
Jordan Campbell: “Projecting the Actor’s Voice for the Outdoor Stage: Let the
Battle-Cry Be Heard!” (CANADA)
Caryn Chappell: “The Intersection of Eastern and Western Choreography”
(CANADA)
22:00PM
Welcome Dinner
Taverna Enalion Taverna in Vlychos
21:30PM
Performance
Intuition of Iphegenia
Hydrama Theatre
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: DAY 2, JULY 4
9:00AM – 10:30AM
Introduction: Dr. Candice Monson
Keynote Speakers
Alice B. Aiken, PhD, Msc, BScPT, BSc(Kin): “Building the pan-Canadian
Research Agenda Military, Veteran, and Family Health” (CANADA)
Dr. Rachel Dekel: “The post war experience for women on the home front:
female spouses of Israeli war veterans with PTSD” (ISRAEL)
Dr. Amy Street: “U.S. Women at War: Gender, Deployment Experiences, and
Post-deployment Adjustment Among Veterans of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”
10:45AM – 12:15PM
Panel Discussion
Crossing Borders/Boundaries
Moderator: Dr. Liana Sakelliou
Dr. Dawn Fowler: “The Unimaginable Journey: time and Spatial Boundaries in
Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Zinnie Harris’ The Wheel (ENGLAND)
Christina Dokou: “Make Lore, Not War: The Myth of the Androgynous Teiresias
in Bertrand Bonello” (GREECE)
Dr. Carly Stevenson: “To a cruel war I sent him’: Wounds and the Womb in
Coriolanus” (ENGLAND)
10:45AM – 12:15PM
Workshop
Dr. Tania Batzoglou: “Women Under Seige” (GREECE)
- WORKSHOP WILL BE HELD AT HYDRAMA AND IS ALREADY FULL -
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: DAY 2, JULY 4
12:30PM – 13:30PM
Panel Discussion
Contemporary US Women Playwrights at War: Points of
Change, Intersection and Discussion
Moderator: Dr. Naomi Hernando-Real
Dr. Naomi Hernando-Real: “At War with War in Susan Glaspell’s Plays”
Dr. Rovie Herrera Medalle: “Loss and Despair: Naomi Wallace’s Brechtian
Vision of War in The Fever Chart: Three Visions of The Middle East”
Dr. Miriam Lopez-Rodriguez: “A Piece of My Heart: The Vietnam War as
Experienced by American Women.” (SPAIN)
13:45PM – 14:30PM
Plenary
Voices in Performance and Protest
Introduction: Peggy Shannon
Corinna Seeds: “Ob-Scene — Greek Theatre as Protest and Resistance off the
Traditional Stage” (GREECE)
Lydia Koniordou: “The Work of Desmi Theatre Company”
21:30PM
Performance
Elektra in Bosnia
Hydrama Theatre
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: DAY 3, JULY 5
9:00AM – 10:15AM
Introduction: Peggy Shannon, M.F.A.
Keynote Speakers
Dr. Liana Sakeliou (GREECE)
Dr. Olga Taxidou: “Medea Comes Home: Medea: A World Apart performed by the
Georgian Film Actor’s Studio” (SCOTLAND, GREECE)
10:30AM – 11:30AM
Panel Discussion
PTSD: Real and Represented
Moderator: Dr. Alice Aitken
Dr. Stephanie A.H. Belanger: “War talk, real talk, between self-preservation
and disclosure: a testimony for a female soldier at war.”
Katerina Gotsi: “Wars Survivor”
Anne C. Wagner: “Critical reflections on interviews conducted with displaced
Darfuri women in South Sudan” (CANADA)
11:45AM – 12:30PM
Panel Discussion
Re-Opening Wounds: Theorizing Trauma
Moderator: Dr. Cynthia Ashperger
Lisa Hughes: “Trauma and Homer’s Troy in Euripides’ Hecuba (USA)
Dr. Katherine B. Free: “Queen Atossa and the Cost of War in Aeschylus’ Persae”
(USA)
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: DAY 3, JULY 5
12:45PM – 13:45PM
Plenary
The Women & War Team: Art, Gender, War & Trauma
Peggy Shannon, Velina Hasu Houston, Timberlake Wertenbaker,
Judith Thompson, Candice Monson
13:45PM – 14:00PM
Concluding Remarks
Dr. Candice Monson and Professor Peggy Shannon
21:30PM
Performance
Ajax in Afghanistan
Hydrama Theatre
CONFERENCE LOCATIONS
Main Conference Location:
GENIKO LYKEIO HYDRA
Women & War Photo Exhibition:
Melina Merkouri Exhibition Hall, Hydra Port
July 2 – 7, 2012
10:30 – 14:30 and 17:30 – 20:30
Welcome Dinner:
Taverna Enalion Taverna in Vlychos*
Theatre Performances:
Hydrama Theatre and Arts Centre
* Conference attendees will be transported to Vlychos by boat. Please meet in front of
the clock tower at 21:00.
CONFERENCE LOCATIONS
* Conference attendees will be transported to Vlychos by boat. Please meet in front of
the clock tower at 21:00.
CONFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES
Peggy Shannon, M.F.A.
Peggy Shannon currently serves as the Chair of the Ryerson Theatre School
at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario. She has also served as professor
of theatre and Associate Vice Provost at the University of California, Davis,
and as assistant professor of theatre at the University Southern California.
She has directed over 100 productions at leading theatres throughout the
United States including Seattle Repertory Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre,
Sacramento Theatre Company, El Portal Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles, L.A. Theatre Works, Mixed Blood Theatre, Alliance Theatre Company,
the Utah Shakespearean Festival, San Jose Repertory Theatre, the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Theatre 6470, Los
Angeles, American Stage, Florida, the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival,
Long Beach Civic Light Opera, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, California Shakespeare Festival, Portland Repertory Theatre.
In Greece, she has worked closely with Corinna Seeds and Hydrama since
1999 and is grateful to Corinna for her unwavering support, creative inspiration, risk-taking, and great ideas throughout the past decade. Shannon also
thanks Liana Sakelliou, another partner in this endeavor, for her hard work,
friendship and commitment to collaboration. Finally, Peggy Shannon dedicates her work on The Women & War Project to the memory of her mother, a
proud WAC in her day. She has served as Artistic Director of two professional
theatres (Sacramento Theatre Company and A Contemporary Theatre), and as
Associate Producing Director of L.A. Theatre Works where she helped launch
The Play’s The Thing radio program. This partnership with National Public Radio affiliate KCRW produced plays for the radio with distinguished American
actors recorded before a live audience. She is grateful for the support of the
Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada for their support of
the Women and War Project. She would also like to thank the faculty, staff
graduate and undergraduate students of the Ryerson Theatre School.
CONFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES
Alice B. Aiken, PhD, Msc, BScPT, BSc(Kin):
Dr. Alice Aiken is the Director of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran
Health Research, a unique consortium of over 20 Canadian universities dedicated
to researching the health needs of military personnel, Veterans and their families. She is an assistant professor in the Physical Therapy Program of the School
of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She does
health services / health policy research in the area of innovative models of care
and disability policy as well as novel methods of knowledge translation. She has
a unique focus on military and Veterans in much of her research. She lectures in
clinical orthopedics, and maintains a small clinical practice.
Dr. Aiken is the immediate Past President of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association. She sits on numerous scientific review committees and the editorial board of an international rehabilitation journal.
She received her PhD and Master’s from Queen’s University in Kingston, her
Physical Therapy degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and a
BSc in Kinesiology at the University of Ottawa. She also proudly served in the
Canadian Forces for 14 years, first as a ship’s navigator in the Navy, then as a
physiotherapist.
Rachel Dekel, Ph.D
Rachel Dekel is an Associate Professor in the School of Social -Work at Bar-Ilan
University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. In the last decade she has been involved in various
research projects that examined different facets of human coping with traumatic
events such as, war, terror and family violence. Prof. Dekel’s research focuses on
individuals who have experienced secondary exposure to traumatic events. She
has conducted studies among spouses of veterans, children of fathers with PTSD,
and therapists who work in areas under terrorism. She is currently the Deputy
Director of the School of Social Work at Bar Ilan University and the Head of the
program for undergraduate students.
CONFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES
Amy E. Street, Ph.D
Dr. Street is clinical psychologist who serves as the Deputy Director of the
Women’s Health Sciences Division, National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, United States Department of Veterans Affairs and an Associate
Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Street received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University
of Georgia in 1998. Dr. Street has an active program of research investigating
negative health outcomes associated with interpersonal trauma, including sexual
harassment, sexual assault and intimate partner violence, in veteran and civilian
populations. A secondary research interest involves the examination of gender
differences in exposure to traumatic experiences and mental health responses to
traumatic experiences including, most recently, investigations of differences in
the experiences of male and female service members in the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Her research has received funding from the Department of Veterans
Affairs and the National Institutes of Health and has been published in numerous
peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Street is also actively involved in the clinical treatment of female veterans suffering from PTSD and other stress-related psychological disorders through VA Boston’s Women’s Stress Disorders Treatment Team.
Her work has garnered her numerous Performance Awards and Special Contribution Awards from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Candice M. Monson, Ph.D
Candice M. Monson is the Professor of Psychology and Director of
Clinical Training at Ryerson University in Toronto, ON. She is also an
Affiliate of the Women’s Health Sciences Division of the U.S. VA National Center
for PTSD, where she previously served as Deputy Director. Dr. Monson is one of
the foremost experts on intimate relationships and traumatic stress and the use
of conjoint therapy to treat PTSD. She has published extensively on the development, evaluation, and dissemination ofPTSD treatments more generally, as well
as gender differences in violence perpetration and victimization. She has been
funded by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, National Institute of Mental
Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of
Defense, and Canadian Institutes of Health for her research on interpersonal
factors in traumatization and couple-based interventions for PTSD. Dr. Monson
co-authored Cognitive Processing Therapy: Veteran/Military Version and is the
primary developer of Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD.
[email protected].
CONFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES
Liana Sakeliou, Ph.D.
Born in Athens, Greece, Liana Sakelliou studied English at the University of Athens (B.A.),
Edinburgh (Grad Diploma), Essex (M.A.), and The Pennsylvania State University (Ph.D.). She
is Professor in English at The University of Athens where she teaches Creative Writing and
American Literature. Her poems, scholarly articles, book reviews, and translations have been
published in Greece and the U.S.A. She received the Fulbright Award for the Arts in 1992, the
Fulbright Award for Scholarship in 2000, the Stanley J. Seeger Research Fellowship in 2001,
the British Council Grant for Travel to attend Poetry Festivals and the seminars “The Contemporary British Writer” “Poetry International 1998” (1989, 1992, 1993, 1998); the U.S.I.S.
Scholarship for Participation in Conferences, The Academy of American Poets Award for
University Students, 1985, the West Dean Grant in 2009, and the Writer in Residence Grant
from The University of Coimbra and The Municipality of Monsanto (2011). She has been
a Visiting Fellow at The University of California, Berkeley and Davis (1992); Northwestern
University, Evanston (2000); Princeton University (2001), and a visiting poet at West Dean
College (2009), at The University of Coimbra, and at the Municipality of Monsanto, Portugal
(2011). Her publications include Denise Levertov: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography, Garland, New York, 1988; Touches in the Flow [Collection of Poems], Nefeli, Athens,
1992; Brendan Kennelly’s Blarney Stone [Edition, Trans. and Intro.], Erato, Athens, 1992; Ralph
Waldo Emerson: The Man Against the Sky [Monograph], Gutenberg, Athens, 1994; Feminist
Criticism on American Women Poets: An Annotated Critical Bibliography, Garland, New York,
1994; Gary Snyder: The Poetics and Politics of Place [Edition, Translation of Poems, Monograph]; Odysseas, Athens, 1998; Introduction to H.D.’s Trilogy [Edition, Translation of Poems,
Monograph], Gutenberg, Athens, 1999; Denise Levertov’s Poetry of Revelation, 1988-1998: The
Mosaic of Nature and Spirit [Monograph], Typothito, Athens, 1999; Second Creation [A Bilingual Libretto], Association of Fulbrighters in Greece, 2000; Take Me Like a Photograph [Collection of Poems with CD], Typothito, Athens, 2004, and its translation into English by David
Connolly published by Typothito in 2005 and into French by Claudine Tourniere published by L’
Harmattan; Portrait Before Dark [Collection of Poems], Typothito, Athens, 2010. In 1996 and in
2006 she co-authored two books on education which were published in Greece. Her work in
progress involves a book on Emily Dickinson, and a book on creative writing. She has served
as Vice Chair of the Department of English, the University of Athens. Her current research
projects focus on contemporary American poetry, creative writing and media narratives.
Olga Taxidou, Ph.D.
Olga Taxidou teaches theatre and performance studies at the University of Edinburgh,
Department of English Literature. Her books include The Mask: a Periodical Performance
by Edward Gordon Craig (1998), Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning (2004), Modernism
and Performance: Jarry to Brecht (2007); she has co-edited Modernism: an Anthology
of Sources and Documents (1998) and Post-war Cinema and Modernity (2001). She is
currently working on a book entitled Greek Tragedy and the Modernist Stage, which is
based on lectures delivered in the USA in 2010 for the Onassis Foundation Senior Visiting
PRESENTERS
Tania Batzoglou, Ph.D.
Tania Batzoglou completed her practice as research PhD at Central School of
Speech and Drama in 2012 with a scholarship from IKY and the Leventis Foundation. Prior to this, she obtained from the same University a Master’s degree with
distinction in the Sesame Approach of Drama and Movement Therapy. Her educational background combines a degree in psychology from University of Crete,
Rethymno and an acting diploma from the drama school of Greek Art Theatre
Karolos Koun. She has worked professionally as an actor, psychologist, dramatherapist, drama-facilitator and actor trainer in both Greece and the U.K.
Stephanie A.H. Belanger, Ph.D.
Stephanie A.H. BelangeR is a professor at the French Department of the Royal
Military College of Canada and Associate Dean of Graduate Research and Studies. She serves as a logistics officer in the Naval Reserve. Her research focus on
the representation of the warrior and she is the author of the recently published
book “Guerre, sacrifices et persécutions”, on the representation of warriors and
just war theory (Paris: Harmattan, 2010). She is co-chair of the Kingston Diversity
Advisory Group for Persons with Disabilities, and associate director of the Canadian Institute for the Military and Veteran Health Research.
Jordan Campbell
Jordan Campbell is entering his fourth year of a B.F.A. in Acting at Ryerson
Theatre School, Ryerson University. He was awarded an Undergraduate Scholar
Opportunity Award for his participation as an actor and scholar in The Women
and War Project.
Caryn Chappel
Caryn Chappell is entering her fourth year of a B.F.A. in Dance at Ryerson Theatre
School, Ryerson University. She was awarded an Undergraduate Scholar Opportunity Award for his participation as a dancer and scholar in The Women and
War Project.
PRESENTERS
Natasha Davis
Natasha Davis, has presented performances, films, installations and lectuers in
venues and festivals in Europe and America as a solo artist. As a collaborator she
has devised and performed with Pacitti Company in Rome, Blast Theory in Dresden, Mikhail Karikis on a UK tour, Ruth Ewan at Tate Britain etc. She has worked
as dramaturge with Marisa Carnesky. As producer, she has worked with Akram
Khan, Bobby Baker, Guy Dartnell and others. A visiting lecturer at Birkbeck University and Brunel University, Natasha has delivered talks and workshops across
the world and is a practice as research PhD student at the University of Warwick.
Christina Dokou, Ph.D.
Christina Dokou, is Assistant Professor of American Literature and Culture at the
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Her areas of interest
include the use of Greek myth in modern Anglophone literature and gender studies (especially androgyny), as well as American culture and literature. She has
published a number of articles on these subjects, in Greece and abroad, and is
currently working as a contributor and co-editor on a volume on Law and Literature, while preparing a volume on American legends and early folklore.
Yael Feiler
Yael Feiler has her theatre background in Israel, where she was trained and
worked as an actor and playwright. Her academic training is from the Department of Theatre Studies, Stockholm University, where she worked as a lecturer
since her dissertation (2004). At Södertörn University, She is since the fall of
2010 responsible for the course Dramatic Acting. Feiler combines her academic
work with practical theatre work. She is also active as a journalist and translator.
Since three years she is a member of the Swedish Arts Council’s reference group
for the free theatre groups.
Dawn Fowler, Ph.D.
Dawn Fowler is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of the West of England. She completed her PhD in post-war British theatre at the University of York.
Her main research and teaching interests are staging trauma, theatre and Human
Rights and representations of war in British and Irish drama. She has published
chapters on the treatment of war in plays by Charles Wood and David Greig, and
leads the module Theatre and War. Dawn.Fowler@ uwe.ac.uk.
Katharine Free, Ph.D.
Katharine Free is a Professor of Theatre Arts at Loyola Marymount University.
She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California at Los Angeles. She
teaches theatre history and dramatic literature as well as directs. She has
published articles on the Greek theatre and translation in academic journals
and has delivered papers at international scholarly conferences, most recently
Comparative Drama Conference where where her translations and adaptations
of Menander’s Epitrepontes and Perikeiromene have received staged readings.
She has also lectured frequently for Los Angeles Opera on many topics related to
their season.
Katerina Gotsi, Ph.D.
After my undergraduate studies at the English Department of the University of
Athens, I travelled to Edinburgh for my Master’s degree in Comparative Literature. Back to the University of Athens again, I studied for a second BA in Theatre
Studies, before embarking on a PhD at UCL, on the reception of the Antigone
myth in Ireland. During my studies, I taught Drama, English and EFL in secondary
education, in Greece and the UK. Having recently finished my thesis, I am currently working towards a critical edition of Aidan Mathews’ version of Antigone,
as well as an online publication of a corpus of interviews with prominent Irish
poets and theatre practitioners, in collaboration with the Archives of Performances of Greek and Roman drama, University of Oxford.
Noelia Hernando-Real, Ph. D.
Noelia Assistant Professor of English and American Literature at the Universidad
Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Her publications include SelfandSpace in the
Theater ofSusan Glaspell (McFarland, 2011), Performing Gender Violence. Plays
by Contemporary American Women Dramatists, co-edited with Barbara Ozieblo
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and several articles on women playwrights, such as
Jane Bowles, Caryl Churchill, Marsha Norman, Paula Vogel, and Caryl Churchill.
Noelia Hernando-Real has given papers at major international conferences, such
as ATDS, SSAWW and SAAS, and is Vice President of the International Susan
Glaspell Society. Since three years she is a member of the Swedish Arts Council’s
reference group for the free theatre groups.
PRESENTERS
Rovie Herrera Medalle
Bachelor degree in English, Universidad de Malaga (UMA), Spain. Masters in
“English Studies, Multilingual and Intercultural Communication,” Universidad de
Malaga. M.A thesis “Appropriating the Canon; Realism and Violence on Stage.”
Nowadays Researching on Naomi Wallace’s plays and Cognitive Approach to
theater for PhD, Universidad de Malaga. Selected presentations: “American
Dream, the Land of Dystopia in Contemporary Theater: Carson Kreitzer’s Self
Defense or Death of Some Salesmen and Naomi Wallace’s Standard Time,” “21st
Century Challenges for North American Drama,” and “From Marx to Brecht to
Wallace: Brechtian influence in Naomi Wallace’s plays: Things of Dry Hours and
Slaughter City.”
Mariko Hori Tanaka, Ph. D.
Mariko Hori Tanaka is Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. She led a
project on adaptations of Greek myths from 2006 to 2012, during which she spent
three months as a Fulbright Research Scholar at University of California San
Diego (Research Associate: Professor Marianne McDonald). Her recent articles
include “Shaping a New Communal Identity: Transnational Feminist Theater of
Velina Hasu Houston” (2012) [in English] and “Medea: Tales of Women Living
Now” (2009) [in Japanese]. She translated Houston’s Calling Aphrodite for Tokyo
Engeki Ensemble’s staged reading in 2008 and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our
Country’s Good for Stardasu 21’s production in 2003.rently working towards a
critical edition of Aidan Mathews’ version of Antigone, as well as an online
publication of a corpus of interviews with prominent Irish poets and theatre practitioners, in collaboration with the Archives of Performances of Greek and Roman
drama, University of Oxford.
Lisa Hughes, Ph.D.
Lisa has a Ph. D. in classics and teaches comparative literature at The Colorado
College in Colorado Springs. In addition to all levels of Latin and Greek literature, Hughes teaches courses as Myth and Literature courses including Myth and
Movies, Women of the Trojan War, and Gender Trouble on the Acropolis.
Her publication interests include women in the ancient world, ancient drama, and
the classical tradition as it appears in American literature and film.
PRESENTERS
Rebecca Liddiard
Rebecca Liddiard is entering her fourth year of a B.F.A. in Acting at Ryerson Theatre
School, Ryerson University. She was awarded an Undergraduate Scholar Opportunity
Award for his participation as an actor and young scholar in The Women and War
Project.
Miriam Lopez-Rodriguez, Ph. D.
Miriam Lopez-Rodriguez teaches in the Department of English at the University of
Malaga, Spain. She is a member ofthe research group working on American Studies
there and was co-organizer of the international conferences on American theatre
held in May 2000,2002,2004, and 2009. She held a Fulbright Fellowship to study
the Sophie Treadwell Papers at the University of Arizona. She has co-edited Staging
a Cultural Paradigm: The Political and the Personal in American Drama (PIE-Peter
Lang, 2002), Women’s Contribution to Nineteenth-Century American Drama (Servei
de Publicacions de la Universitat de Valencia, 2004) and Broadway Bravest Woman:
Selected Writings by Sophie Treadwell (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006).
Irene Pauzer
Irene Pauzer has performed for over 30 years. Theatre: Stratford Shakespearean Theatre Festival productions King John, Lady Falconbridge, King Lear (dir. By Robin Phillips), Titus Andronicus (dir. Brian Bedford), The Bacchae and The Importance of Being
Earnest (dir. David William) and Henry V, Servant of Two Masters; Citadel Theatre,
Macbeth; Theatre New Brunswick, Steel Magnolias; Autumn Leaf Theatre, Magda,
title role; Banff Centre of Fine Arts, The House of Blue Leaves, Bananas. Film/TV:
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Common Ground, Mrs. Winterbourne, Gate II,
Amerika, Bridge to Silence, Martha, Ruth and Edie, Land of Milk ‘n Honey, Twilight
Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Training at the Royal Ballet School in London,
Irene’s dance credits include: three seasons with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens
extensively touring North America. Irene is currently an Associate Professor for the
Ryerson University Theatre School and she teaches voice and speech.
Catherine Redpath, Ph.D.
Catherine Redpath, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Lincoln,
U.K. She is the author of various articles and chapters on literary trauma theory and
is currently working on an edited collection on trauma. She is an Associate Editor of
the Journal of New Directions in the Humanities and is Chair of the first Interrogating
Trauma in the Humanities conference which will convene in August 2012.
PRESENTERS
Carly Stevenson
Carly Stevenson is a postgraduate student at the University of Lincoln, currently
completing an MA in English Studies. Carly’s research interests include Trauma
theory, particularly in the works of Shakespeare and John Keats, Romanticism
and the Gothic, literary representations of haunting, and issues in Ecocriticism.
Carly will be presenting papers at the ‘What Happens Now?’ conference this
July, and the ‘Interrogating Trauma in the Humanities’ conference in August, both
at the University of Lincoln. [email protected]
Naomi Tonooka
Naomi Tonooka is Professor in the Department of English at Aoyama Gakuin
University in Tokyo where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in
critical theory, modern and postmodern American literature, drama, and culture.
Her books include Koharu Kisaragi: the Playwright (2001) co-edited with Kojin
Nishido, Hiroshi Watanabe and Kazuyuki Kajiya, and Transgressing Boundaries:
American Theatre (2001) co-edited with Kazuo Ichinose. Her essays include
“American Antigone: September 11 and the Rhetoric of Mourning,” in The Body
and Voices: Greek Drama and Noh Plays Today (2009). Tonooka has organized
international conferences (1999, 2001) on Asian women and theatre and served
on the Advisory Committee for the International Women Playwrights Conference
(1994-98). She is currently interested in transnational representations of social
trauma and history in adaptations of ancient Greek plays from a post-modern
feminist perspective.
Anne C. Wagner
Anne C. Wagner is a 3rd year PhD student in Clinical Psychology at Ryerson
University. Anne’s research interests include the experience of women living with
HIV, HIV stigma in healthcare systems, the development and assessment of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder and the role of social interaction in the
development of posttraumatic stress disorder. Anne is currently a Board Member
of Stand Canada, a youth-based anti-genocide advocacy organization whose goal
it is to make stopping genocide a cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy, and
previously served as its Principal Director, Advocacy Director and Parliamentary
Engagement Chair.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES: INTUITION OF IPHIGENIA
PLAYWRIGHT: VELINA HASU HOUSTON
Velina Hasu Houston has written over thirty plays including
eighteen commissions in a career that began Off-Broadway
with her play Tea at Manhattan Theatre Club and American
Dreams at Negro Ensemble Company. Her plays have been
produced globally including at the Old Globe Theatre, George
Street Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Smithsonian Institution, Whole Theatre (Olympia Dukakis, producer), NHK (Japan nationwide),
Pasadena Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, A Contemporary Theatre, Sacramento
Theatre Company, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Playwrights’ Arena, and others
including in the People’s Republic of China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and
Malaysia. Houston also writes opera (Los Angeles Opera), television, and film
and is a published essayist and poet. Her work for theatre for young audiences
has been produced at the Kennedy Center, Singapore Youth Festival, and Honolulu Theatre for Youth, and published by Smith and Kraus and others. A collection
of her plays, Green Tea Girl in Orange Pekoe Country, will be published by Murasaki Books in 2013. She has been awarded fellowships from Japan Foundation,
Rockefeller Foundation (twice), California Arts Council, Sidney F. Brody Foundation, and others; as well as being honored by Sidney Poitier and American Film
Institute, the Pinter Review Prize for Drama (Silver Medal), Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (finalist), Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New
Play Award (finalist), Women in Theatre’s Red Carpet Award, East West Players’
Made In America Visionary Award, Loving Prize (Mixed Roots Film & Literary
Festival, New York Foundation for Arts), Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival
Rainbow Award, and others including the 2012 Living Legacy Award from the
Women’s International Center and the 2012 Lee Melville Award for Outstanding
Contributions to Los Angeles Theatre. She is a Fulbright Specialist in The Fulbright Specialist Program through 2015. Houston is a member of the Dramatists’
Guild, Writers Guild of America-West, League of Professional Theatre Women,
and Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights. She serves on three federal agencies,
the US Department of State’s US-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational
Interchange (US Panelist), Japan-US Friendship Commission (Commissioner), and
US-Japan Bridging Foundation. At the USC School of Theatre, she is founder and
director of the Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing, Professor of Theatre, Associate Dean of Faculty, Director of Dramatic Writing, and Resident Playwright.
Her archives are at The Library of Congress, Washington DC, and The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California. http://www.velinahasuhouston.com.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES: ELEKTRA IN BOSNIA
PLAYWRIGHT: JUDITH THOMPSON
Thompson attended Queen’s University in Drama in 1976
and the National Theatre School of Canada, after which
she worked as an actor and a screenwriter. She is a
Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
Her plays include: The Crack Walker, White Biting Dog, I Am Yours, Lion in the
Streets, Sled, Perfect Pie, Habitat, Motel Helene (adaptation from French to English), Hedda Gabler (new adaptation), Enoch Arden in the Hope Shelter, Palace
of the End, Such Creatures, Body and Soul, and Sick (The Grace Project). Among
others, she has edited She Speaks: Monologues by Canadian Playwrights and “I
Cannot Heave my Heart Into My Mouth” (Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare
Project, Daniel Fischlin). Thompson’s current projects include: Unspeakable:
(Stratford commission), Big Girl (Nightwood Project),Vanquished (working title
Women and War Project), Joy (commission, Fugen Theatre), Nothing by Mouth
(collectively written play with Erin Shields, Jason Magonhoy, Andrew Moodie
and Jordan T), and a Verbatim Play about women from the Peterborough Area
who have served in the military for 4th Line (Kim Blackwell). She will perform in
Watching Ashley –her one woman show at the Factory Theatre in spring 2012
and Fall 2012.
Thompson has received many awards including the Governor General’s Award,
Toronto Arts Award, several Chalmers Awards, Canadian Author’s Association
Award, the Nellie for her Radio writing), the Walter Carsen Performing Arts
Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Award, a Dora Award, and was a finalist for
a second Governor General’s Award, and a Finalist for a second Susan Smith
Blackburn Award. Judith Thompson was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006, and in 2009, she received an Amnesty International Freedom of
Expression Award for Palace of the End at the Traverse Theatre in 2009.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES: AJAX IN AFGHANISTAN
PLAYWRIGHT: TIMBERLAKE WERTENBAKER
Timberlake Wertenbaker grew up in the Basque Country
and lives in London. Her plays include for the Royal Court:
Our Country’s Good, The Grace of Mary Traverse, Three
Birds Alighting on a Field, The Break of Day and Credible
Witness. Among her other works are The Love of the Nightingale (Royal Shakespeare Company), Galileo’s Daughter
(Theatre Royal, Bath), The Ash Girl (Birmingham Rep), After Darwin (Hampstead
Theatre) and The Line (Arcola Theatre) Translations and adaptations include
Sophocles’ Theban Plays (RSC), Euripides’ Hecuba (ACT, San Francisco), Eduardo de Filippo’s Filumena (Piccadilly), Sophocles’ Elektra (Getty); Racine’s Phèdre
(Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Ontario.) and most recently, Racine’s Britannicus (Wilton’s Music Hall ) Opera includes The Love of the Nightingale, music by
Richard Mills (Sydney Opera House 2011)Awards include Laurence Olivier play
of the year and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for Best New Foreign
Play, for Our Country’s Good; Susan Smith Blackburn award and Writers’ Guild
best play for Three Birds Alighting on a Field; Eileen Anderson Central TV award
for The Love of the Nightingale.
Timberlake was the Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Freud Museum,
London, in 2011.
Women and War Playwrights: Velina Hasu Houston, Judith Thompson and Timberlake Wertenbaker
Photography by Richard Burdett
BIOGRAPHIES
Lydia Koniordou
Lydia Koniordou was born in Athens. She studied English Literature at the University of Athens from 1971 to 1974, and German, Music, Theory and Instruments, Byzantine Music, Classical Song and Kinesiology from 1971 to 1990.
In 1977, she graduated from the Drama School of the National Theatre. She
worked with ‘Desmi’ in Electra and Antigone (1975-76), while at the same time
she was a founder member of the ‘Theatre of Spring’ (1977). Subsequently, she
acted with the National Theatre in works by Ionesco, Plautus, and Romas, as
well as playing Antigone in the Phoenician Women of Euripides, directed by
Alexis Minotis (1977-78). From 1978 to 1987 she was a permanent mmber of the Art Theatre of Carolos
Koun and played leading roles in works from the Greek and non-Greek repertoire, directed by Carolos Koun,
Yorgos Lazanis and Mimis Kouyioumtzis. She also played the Coryphaea of the Chorus in many works
of ancient drama, as well as the roles of Athena in the Eumenides and Clytemenestra in the Electra of
Sophocles and in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus. From 1987 to 1991, Lydia Koniordou worked with the ‘Nea
Skini’ of Lefteris Voyiatzis in Uncle Vania by Chekhov (Sonia), and Ritter, Dene, Voss by Thomas Bernhard
(Dene). At the same period, she appeared with the Thessalian Theatre in festivals throughout Greece, at
Merida in Spain and in Antwerp in the Electra and Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides and the Libation-Bearers
of Aeschylus. In 1992, she was awarded the Koun Prize for her services to tragedy. In 1994, she played the
leading role in Filumena Marturano by Eduardo De Filippo, directed by Vasilis Nikolaïdis and, in 1995, the
role of Geese in Freedom in Bremen by R.W. Fasbinder, directed by Dimitris Ikonomou. In 1998, she directed
the Electra of Sophocles for the National Theatre, in which she also played the leading role. In 1998, she
played in Murderess, taken from the short story of the same title by Alexandros Papadiamantis, directed
by Sotiris Hatzakis, in 2000, in Yerma by Frederico García Lorca, directed by Costas Tsianos, and in 2001,
in the Oresteia, directed by Yannis Kokkos, as well as in two National Theatre productions. Apart from acting, Lydia Koniordou has also worked as a director: she directed and acted in Emma B. Vedova Giocasta by
Alberto Savinio (1986), the Fasoulides by Lorca (Municipal Regional Theatre, Larisa, 1991), Eliza by Xenia
Kaloyeropoulou (Municipal Regional Theatre, Patras, 1991), and an adaptation of the work Cassandra by C.
Wolf at the University of New York. From 1993 to 1996, she was Director of the Municipal Regional Theatre of Volos, where she directed Sound of the Weapon by Loula Anagnostaki, the revue Kou-Kou-Cha by
Sophia Philippidou, and the Alcestis of Euripides. She has taught acting in private schools and the Drama
School of the National Theatre, as well as in the Department of Theatre of the School of Fine Arts of the
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Corinna Seeds
Trained as an actress and theatre director with Joan Littlewood’s E.15
Theatre workshop, Stratford, UK. Associate Director Theatro Technis, UK
and founder/ director of Stirabout, the first British theatre company to
tour prisons. She has run workshops and lectured in USA, UK and Greece
since 1974 and has lived on the island of Hydra, Greece since 1988 where
she formed the Hydrama Theatre and Arts Centre, an organisation which
promotes the performance, study and practice of ancient Greek theatre.
(www.hydrama.gr)
ABSTRACTS
Tania Batzoglou, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“Using Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus as a starting point we will explore playfully the psychology of
women being under siege during the war.”
This workshop will demonstrate in practice the way that the Sesame Approach of Drama and Movement
Therapy can be applied to facilitate an embodied awareness of an intense psychological situation. The Sesame
approach belongs to the category of Arts Therapies and supports the Jungian concept of therapy, considering
therapy less a matter of treating a symptom, but rather the amplification of self-awareness by reflecting on life’s
experiences. In my practice and because of my cultural identity, I utilise the embodiment of ancient Greek myths
in order to enable the individual to undergo inner rearrangements and enlarge the possibilities of seeing oneself
in relationships with the self and the other. More particularly for my practice as research PhD, this playful
exploration of myths was facilitated for actors in order to support their inner psychological and unconscious
process within the realm of psychophysical actor training. I relate therapy and theatre with psychagogia. A
pedagogical concept first used by Socrates that means literally ‘guiding the psyche’. The word is translated in
English as entertainment but Socrates refers to psychagogia as the vital pedagogical approach of the teacher
to guide the student towards a dialectical examination of the lived experience and so to a knowledge that
comes from inside rather than given from outside. Aristotle in his Poetics describes theatre as the greatest
form of psychagogia: a place for a dynamic exchange between actors and spectators reflecting on psychological
human situations of archetypal significance. The healer Asclepius recognised this relationship and in most of
his sanctuaries around Greece there is a theatre nearby. The patients amongst other activities attended theatre
performances in order to stimulate movement to their psyche.
Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger, Ph.D.,
613-451-6000 ext 3678
[email protected]
“War talk, real talk, between self-preservation and disclosure: a testimony from a female soldier at war.”
The collection of testimonies of military members who have deployed oversees in various types of missions
allows for a discourse analysis that unveils word after word the construction of a soldier identity, from its
genesis and development through indoctrination (warrior culture), until its questioning after multiple exposures
to combat arms, followed each time by an often challenging return home, including the reconstruction of
this frail identity to the point of preparing again to build-up towards a combat readiness level. The multiple
exposures of military members transitioning from combat arms to family life seems to be constantly lived at
three levels: individual (core values), operational (mission’s characteristics), and social (identification to soldier
identity/warrior culture). Results from a discourse analysis of the experience of 100 Canadian Forces members
who were interviewed after deployment to Afghanistan tend to show that the individual soldering identity and
its impact on post deployment rehabilitation and combat readiness are often tied with self-health assessment.
Once acknowledged, this tension is often resolved by readjustments in the soldiers’ identification to their own
war culture. It is this readjustment that seems to be a determinant in the soldiers’ ability to gain back combat
readiness.
While being put in the context of this 100-testimonies study, the present communication will focus on two
testimonies collected from the same female service member who was deployed to Afghanistan, before, and
after the member has received the diagonis of PTSD. This paper aims at exploring which factors influence the
way a broken sould and a broken body achieve soldier identity. These factors will be identified by the recourse
to a tri-dimensional model that assesses, through a discourse analysis, the results identified as being essential
to mission success based on: 1. Military ethos (Canadian values); 2. Field experience (operational).
ABSTRACTS
Jordan Campbell
[email protected]
“Projecting the Voice on the Outdoor Stage: Let the Battle Cry Be Heard!”
In this paper I will examine how the physical, vocal and imaginative requirements of the actor
might affect his or her ability to communicate effectively in spaces that seat up to 15,000 audience
members. Also, I will investigate the differences in terms of pitch, volume, projection, range and
need of the character that can be found in using Greek masks in these amphitheatres.
Caryn Chappell
[email protected]
“The Intersection of Eastern-Western Choreography”
In this paper I will examine how a choreographer may combine ancient Greek mythology with a
specific dance technique such as Martha Graham, and, in movement, transcribe it through movement to the current understanding of the effects of war upon women.
Natasha Davis
[email protected]
“The embodiment of war and exile in Natasha Davis’ trilogy: Rupture, Asphyxia and Suspended”
Drawing on the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the tragedy of Cassandra’s predicament, the curse of Helen,
the idealism and disobedience of Antigone, the passion of Medea, the enslavement of Trojan
Women and the general horror of war, this paper/performance lecture considers Natasha Davis’
autobiographic performance trilogy Rupture/Asphyxia/ Suspended tracing her migration and experiences of living in exile in Greece, Syria and England following a civil war in ex Yugoslavia where
she was born to a Serbian father and Croatian mother. Combining non-linearity, interdisciplinarity
and poetic voice, the work explores personal histories, fragments of living in a spasm between the
East and West, a tale of war, a tale of illness (cancer), fear (when the impossible and incomprehensible become the only way possible), a tale of the infertile body and infertile land, and decay of the
body – contrasting them with the materiality of endurance, the body as a permanent site of trauma,
and the politics of reclaiming and embracing a cultural background and state of bodily health. This
performance lecture raises questions such as if living in the liminal space between two worlds,
can one of them ever become home? How do memories preserve identity? Does dust ever settle
on the past? Does grass grow over it? The questions are ‘played’ against the political categories of
crossing borders, marking cities, embodied contradictions and transformations, memory and land.
Natasha Davis’ research as a subject inscribed through her own experiences of displacement and
migration informs her embodied practice as performer.
ABSTRACTS
Rachel Dekel, Ph.D., Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Rachel Dekel, The Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900,
Israel. Tel: 972-3-5713819. E-mail: [email protected]
“The effects of combat related PTSD on female spouses: Lessons learned from the Israeli experience.”
Studies indicate that traumatic events may have both negative and positive long-term implications not only for the direct victims of those events, but also for their significant others. Based
on quantitative and qualitative data collected among Israeli veterans with posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) and their spouses, this lecture will address: a) the effects of combat related PTSD
on female spouses’ secondary distress and growth, b) possible mechanisms through which distress
is transmitted from the veterans to their spouses, and c) possible clinical and research implications
of the findings.
Christina Dokou, Ph.D., The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
[email protected]
“Make Lore, Not War: The Myth of the Androgynous Teiresias in Bertrand Bonello”
The war of the sexes, according to Simone de Beauvoir, is the only war that cannot be won by
the annihilation or expulsion of the enemy, who is needed for procreation. This existential irony
becomes particularly pronounced in actual war, whose brunt throughout history has been overwhelmingly borne by women. What happens, however, when the gender demarcation on which
the dichotomy of victim-victimized rests is upset? Greek myth gave us an array of figures that
break the sex/gender barrier and test themselves in war-like conditions: the Amazons, Caenis/
eus, even Achilles. Among them Teiresias, the blind oracle of the Theban plays of Sophocles and
Euripides, whose prophetic powers are organically bound to his having experienced life as both
man and woman. Presented invariably as the peace-bringing voice of moderation and reconciliation in times of civil strife (Oedipus Tyrannus, The Bacchae) or civil war (Antigone), Teiresias serves
as an ongoing study of the ways in which sex/gender performativity (according to Judith Butler’s
Gender Trouble) interacts with war-like situations in ways that question the routine of the male
victimizer-female victim. This stands true also in the original twist director Bertrand Bonello gave
the myth in his Palme d’Or-nominated 2003 experimental film, Tiresia, about a transsexual Brazilian
illegal immigrant who works as a prostitute in France. Kidnapped by a sociopath, s/he is blinded
and abandoned to die because, when deprived of his/her daily hormone shots, s/he slowly reverts
physically to male. Saved by a villager family, the now male protagonist spontaneously develops
prophetic abilities and finds peace helping others. Although the glaring artistic faults and oddness
of the film doomed it commercially, it is an intriguing study on the potential deconstruction of the
lines our contemporary wars: immigrants vs. citizens, men vs. women, religion vs. natural ethics,
economic oppression and trafficking vs. multiculturalism. It reveals how the performative gender of
“Tiresia” both exacerbates the effects of war and masculine
ABSTRACTS
Yael Feiler
[email protected]
“The (military) discourse and me”
This text, which combines academic and artistic writing, describes the frustration realizing one’s being
a national subject and a part of (an Israeli) military discourse, and playfully suggests different dramatic
strategies handling it.
The insight into one’s own discursive existence awakes several questions: can one “jump off” the
discourse? Is this in any way a possibility? Is one destined to be a carrier of this discourse? Can one
distinguish the borderline that separates the discourse from “one’s own” identity? What happens if one
breaks loose? Can one consciously create, practise and propagate an alternative discourse? A national
subject has a given role in the structure of a discourse. What happens if one formulates and articulates
an opposite role? The relationship of a character in a drama to her normative setting is seen as an arena
in which the questions addressed are given room for expression. Within the text a dramatic/fantasy
character – a “She Monster” - is created, who’s every individual trait serves to challenge the normative
environment. A slush bucket full of a random selection of forbidden traits, which would embody the
subversive alternative. Along the process of writing the author realizes that she, herself, is this kind of a
She Monster. The text is an attempt in different ways to describe the transformation of theory into flesh.
And also to describe the way in which flesh nurtures theory. How flesh penetrates the layers of words
and forces itself upon them. How the consistency of the words becomes a liquefied (bloody?) existence.
How autobiography colours fiction and how experiences melt into poetry.
Dawn Fowler, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“The Unimaginable Journey: Time and Spatial Boundaries in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and
Zinnie Harris’ The Wheel”
This paper will consider the respective journeys of the central female protagonist in Brecht’s Mother
Courage and Zinnie Harris’ more recent The Wheel (Traverse Theatre, 2011). Both plays trace the
experience of war on ordinary working women as they assume care of children and enter into a state of
constant travel to avoid an increasingly pervasive war as it spreads across Europe.
Interestingly, I argue, Harris follows Brecht in his use of epic theatre to present both the historical horror
of war against a backdrop of day to day drudgery, where the finding of food and shelter becomes part
of the daily routine of survival. Both Mother Courage and The Wheel’s central protagonist, Beatriz, are
forced to dislocate themselves from a permanent home and enter into an unstable state of flux as they
crisscross national boundaries that are in a perpetual state of transformation. Where Harris’ play goes
further, however, is in its jumping of both real-time and spatial borders. Beatriz’s nightmarish, cyclical
journey encompasses the major conflict zones of the twentieth century, as she endlessly encounters war
after war.The nature of my intervention in this paper is twofold. Firstly, I aim to compare the use of epic
theatre in these innovative theatrical approaches to women and their crossing of boundaries. Secondly,
I will analyse the use of a consistently threatening and intensifying conflict as dramatic device, paying
particular attention to: the use of literal and metaphorical demarcation, masculine/feminine dichotomy in
the conflict zone, and the enactment of the impact of war on journeying women.
ABSTRACTS
Katharine B. Free, Ph.D., Professor of Theatre Arts, Loyola Marymount
University, Los Angeles, California, USA.
[email protected].
“Queen Atossa and the Cost of War in Aeschylus’ Persae”
Aeschylus’ Persians is the only surviving ancient Greek tragedy about an historical event, the battle
of Salamis, in the Second Persian War. The Persian king, Xerxes, who led an invasion against the
Greek mainland and who watched his fleet destroyed at the sea battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.E.,
is a character in Aeschylus’ play and was still alive and on the throne, when the play was first
performed in Athens in 472
B.C.E. Furthermore, the author and most of the original audience were combatants and witnesses
to the battle. Consequently, Persians has immediacy on the subject of war matched by few other
plays in history and by no others in the ancient Greek theatre. Atossa, the Queen Mother, is the
most important character. Atossa was a real woman who wielded immense influence and personal
power in the Persian monarchy. She was married to King Darius who appears as a ghost in the
play. An examination of her character will show that her suffering is different from that of defeated
female characters in all other Greek tragedies. Atossa is not so much a victim of war as a victim
of the politics of power. She has not lost her son to death in battle nor is she facing servitude or
impoverishment. Yet her anguish is extreme. However, her concern is not with the suffering of the
ordinary women of Persia (although their suffering is described by the chorus), but with the threat
to the throne and the humiliating loss of face to the ruling fa~i1y I propose to examine the character of Atossa in Aeschylus’ Persians to understand the effects of defeat on a woman who personally bears some responsibility for the war. Her realization of the mistakes of regime is essential to
understanding Aeschylus’ tragic view in this play.
Katarina Gotsi, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“Wars Survivor: Aidan Mathews’ reading of Antigone”
Aidan Mathews’ Antigone – a play written in close collaboration between the Irish playwright and
Michael Scott, the director – was first staged at the Projects Arts Centre in Dublin, in 1984. Far
from following the original storyline, Mathews places the action in a post-war, post- apocalyptic
set, on a stage full of concrete and debris. Although there are no hints as to the exact locale of the
play, the inspiration for the set - according to the director, to whom the original idea for the version
belongs - came from a picture of bombarded Dresden after World War II. In this radical revisiting
of the Sophoclean tragedy, Creon is the leader of an autocratic and inhumane regime, Heman the
excessively violent Chief of the Secret Police, and the one man Chorus the terrorized and terrified
everyday man. Antigone’s role, in this context of oppression and war, is to relieve pain, to resist injustice, to stand up for the weak, to be the voice of the voiceless. The young heroine’s appearance
here should not, however, be seen but as one of her numerous comebacks around the world over
the centuries, whenever she is needed. Unlike her conformist, self-interested and vicious sister
Ismene, Antigone is depicted in Mathews’ play as emerging from the ruins over and over again carrying at her back all the suffering of humanity.
ABSTRACTS
Rovie Herrera Medalle, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“Loss and Despair. Naomi Wallace’s Brechtian Vision of War in The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle
East.”
The North American dramatist Naomi Wallace is considered “a political writer;” she is interested in war and
conflict and many of her plays include war as a landscape. She is well known for her play In the Heart of
America (1994), which deals with the Vietnam War and the Gulf War and she also presents the tragedy of the
Afghanistan War in her play No Such Cold Thing (2009). However, Wallace’s most accomplished work regarding
war is her triptych The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East (2009), where she produces her own artistic vision of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and the invasion of Iraq. Deeply influenced by the German dramatist
Bertolt Brecht, Wallace uses the V-effect or Verfremdungseffekt to arouse critical thought; the spectator distances her/himself from the action and by doing so she avoids a passive response from the audience. Wallace
finds more interesting to reach the public through Brecht’s techniques, since Brecht was also a political writer
interested in war. Wallace shocks and disturbs the audience in a way that they want to come back for more;
among her avant-garde techniques she uses minimalistic mise-en-scene and oneiric settings. She represents
war by looking at humanity in depth without missing the point of theatricality because, as she states, theater
is entertainment above all else. Although Wallace represents war, she avoids violence on stage; the conflicts
and horrors of war are analyzed through their consequences. The spectator is not confronted by combat or war
per se; instead, the audience faces the testimonies of the victims, which include loss, trauma, and shell shock.
Her style is not realistic and she brings in surrealist elements and symbols to portray her characters. Dealing
with atrocity when creating an artistic work is one of the struggles that contemporary North American women
playwrights encounter nowadays though it seems that Wallace finds balance and relief
in Brecht’s theater.
Noelia Hernando-Real, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“At War with War in Susan Glaspell’s Plays”
Susan Glaspell’s theatre is a brilliant source to analyze the different positions women could take regarding war.
A member of the Greenwich Village bohemian circles of the first two decades of the 20th century, Glaspell’s
position changed from pacifism, to noninterventionism to interventionism. This paper offers a survey of how
Glaspell’s opinion, as that of many US citizens at the time, changed, and what her aim was with these plays.
The plays· that will be used to analyse this point are Close the Book, Inheritors, Bernice, The Verge, and Springs
Eternal. I’ll discuss how in her early plays war is valued for the economic opportunities it provided, as well as
the respectful social status being a soldier meant. In her early plays, women admire and support these past
wars, mainly the American War of Independence and the Civil War. However, as the First World War broke
out, Glaspell felt she had to contribute with her theatre to stop armed confrontations, and in her 1921 play
Inheritors, set against the backdrop of the First World War, characters onstage engage in discussion about conscientious objectors’ (anti)patriotism and Americans’ duty to join the war. Many are the traumatised characters
Glaspell puts on stage, besides a strong female protagonist who dares to claim that the essence of Americanism means pacifism and collaboration. With The Verge, which opened shortly after Inheritors, Glaspell took a
non-patriotic stance, claiming that US lost the war, meaning that winning the war would have meant complete
destruction and the chance to start things anew -the female protagonist, obviously, will only escape reality
through madness. However, while Glaspel was a pacifist most of her life, her opinion starkly changed with the
ABSTRACTS
Mariko Hori Tanaka, Ph.D.
“Anti-war Messages in Contemporary Plays by Women with Particular Emphasis on Velina Hasu Houston’s The Intuition of Iphigenia and Moira Buffini’s Welcome to Thebes”
A number of adaptations of Greek myths have been created by contemporary women writers, because,
as Hall writes, “the voices of Greek tragic women teach us […] to be properly humble in the face of the
Unknowable” (45) and “Greek tragedy has chimed with the obsessions of an age which as itself only just
survived the man-made horrors of the twentieth century” (46). We have seen through Greek myths and
atrocious wars in the past that war “alters and corrupts human character and social interaction” (Malpede, xv). This paper will give thoughts to problems of the male-oriented politics causing ferocious wars
today by discussing and analyzing Velina Hasu Houston’s The Intuition of Iphigenia and Moira Buffini’s
Welcome to Thebes (premiered in London in 2010). While Houston’s The Intuition of Iphigenia adapted
from Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis is a dance piece set in the mythological time and place, Buffini’s
Welcome to Thebes is a free adaptation of the Theban legend set in our time. Heroines of both plays
seek peace to the world. Houston’s Iphigenia reproaches Agamemnon who as a political leaders gives a
nation’s honor priority over the lives of his family and citizen. Buffini’s heroine, Eurydice, president of a
poor nation elected just after a brutal war, asks Theseus, a general from Athens, a rich country, for help
to establish a stable government and create a peaceful democratic country. Theseus promises to help
Eurydice but behind her, her soldiers plot a terror against Athens. Houston’s Iphigenia is a martyr who
fought for gaining peace, believing that “it is our [women’s] gain” [26]. Buffini’s Eurydice states that “[o]ur
government will be unique if we can maintain power without resort to violence. That is the thing worth
fighting for” (92). Both Houston and Buffini, through their heroines, seek peace without violence.
Lisa B. Hughes, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“Trauma and Homer’s Troy in Euripides’ Hecuba”
In the sixth book of Homer’s Iliad, the Trojan Hector speaks to his wife about his dread of her day of
captivity, which is sure to come after Troy has fallen. Much later, Euripides wrote three plays in which
he imagines this very day: Trojan Women, Andromache, and Hecuba. In their original context the plays
were performed against the backdrop of the devastating Peloponnesian War, and the suffering of the
Trojan women is clearly a metaphor for the contemporary situation. In this paper, I’ll show how Hecuba
dramatizes the trauma of the war, taking as my starting point Kathy Caruth’s work on trauma theory and
literature. The play dramatizes the female response specifically to the death of Hector in Homer’s Iliad, a
death that was mourned conspicuously by three Trojan women. That this “day of captivity” signaled by
Hector’s death continues to occur as a literary trope invites us to look at the play in terms of contemporary trauma theory, in which, according to Caruth, “trauma is not locatable in the simple violent or
original event in an individual’s past, but rather in the way its very unassimilated nature--the way it was
precisely not known in the first instance--returns to haunt the survivor later on”. In Euripides’ Hecuba this
is apparent in both of the play’s plots. The narrative in which the virgin daughter Polyxena offers herself
willingly as a sacrifice, I’ll argue, does not merely repeat the virgin sacrifice of Iphigenia at the beginning
of the Trojan War, but through it Polyxena and Hecuba both relive the loss of Hector, specifically as
shown in the Iliad. Likewise Hecuba’s plot reinscribes the Iliad as the original wound, as it involves the
inevitable repetition of the losses of Hector and of Troy. Her grisly revenge on Polymestor is thus a result
of the trauma she experiences.
ABSTRACTS
Rebecca Liddiard
[email protected]
“Body-Mind-Spirit: The Production of Truth”
In this paper, “Body-Mind-Spirit: The Production of Truth” I examine the role of the actors in
politically motivated theatre, how they strive to find truth in performance while still honouring the
aesthetic vision of the director.
Miriam Lopez-Rodriguez, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“A Piece of my Heart: The Vietnam War as Experienced by American Women”
Contemporary American drama dealing with the theme of war usually focuses on the men at the
battle front, on the women at the so-called home front or on the way both men and women manage their lives in the aftermath of the conflict. It is not very often that we find a play dealing with
women directly involved with the fighting, if not as combatants as first-hand witnesses of what
American soldiers were experiencing. In her 2006 play A Piece of my Heart playwright Shirley
Lauro (1933-) explores the experiences of six American women during and after the Vietnam War.
Having served as nurses, as an entertainer or as an Army clerk, these women remember through
a long flashback their experiences from the moment they arrived to Vietnam as volunteers till the
time they went back home. While in Vietnam they try to make sense of a war that changes them,
back into the United States they have to face the attitude of their fellow Americans towards this
unpopular conflict.
According to statistics, 7484 women served in Vietnam. Between 10 and 24% of them left the
profession when they returned home. Up to 48% sought mental health counseling. All of them
volunteered. Shirley Lauro’s pays tribute to them.
Candice Monson, Ph.D.
[email protected]
Dr. Monson will provide an overview of posttraumatic stress disorder and the advances that have
been made in its treatment. She will discuss the importance of the humanities in raising public
consciousness about PTSD and its treatability, engaging individuals and their loved ones in care,
and encouraging a dialogue about women’s experiences with war.
ABSTRACTS
Catherine Redpath, Ph.D
[email protected]
“Textual Trauma: Reading ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ in Sofi Oksanen’s Purge.”
Trauma is a diverse and complex area of study in the humanities and intersects with discourses
such as psychoanalysis, history, neurobiology and literary criticism. Recently, a new discipline has
emerged from these debates known as the ‘Medical Humanities’ which attempts to develop the relationship between traditional interpretative analysis and clinical practice. A key concept in trauma
studies is the shift in identity which follows surviving an extreme instance of trauma. The subjects’
identity is understood as being fractured due to the inability of the individual (or indeed, the collective), to effectively process the traumatic event, which then returns to haunt the survivor in the
form of intrusive memories or flashbacks. Trauma may also be codified in varied cultural artefacts
and frequently manifests as a depiction of loss of personal autonomy, either in a literal or a psychic
sense, or both. In the novel, the trauma survivor is often presented as undergoing a psycho-social
journey in which, and through which, s/he emerges into a new form of self-awareness and which
culminates in some form of cathartic resolution. Incorporating ideas from psychology and psychiatry, this paper will consider the individual and collective presentations of violence in Sofi Oksanen’s
novel Purge (2011), with an emphasis on the inter-relationship between traumatic experience and
violence. In particular, literary representations of PTSD and the significance of the dissociative
symptoms which may emerge from this condition will be discussed. Oksanen’s work is interesting
in that it repudiates the traditional culmination of the trauma novel, offering, instead of self-awareness and catharsis, individual re-enactments of violence and self-annihilation as aberrant acts of
purgation from post-traumatic stress.
Evangelia Sakelliou, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“H.D.’s ‘Trilogy’ amidst the war”
The American modernist poet H.D. wrote her best work during and after WW2,and in between her
nervous breakdowns caused by it. She entitled it “Trilogy of War”, and in its three volumes she
depicted the political and the psychological crises as one. In my lecture I will examine her major
poetic achievement as her attempt
ABSTRACTS
Corinna Seeds
[email protected]
“OB-SKENE”: Protest, Prisons and Dangerous Performances: Ancient Greek plays as weapons for resistance off
the traditional stage”
The island of Hydra, this beautiful setting for the First Annual Woman and War Conference, once served as
a place of exile and punishment: I will begin with a brief overview of wars which have taken place in Greece
since the 1930s and the censorship, exile and torture inflicted on Greek artists. I will then focus on performances of ancient Greek drama that have taken place outside traditional theatre settings in order to voice resistance
against military occupation and tyranny in Greece. I will explore the productions on Greek island concentration
camps in the 1940s and 1950s where theatre was utilized both to resist and to oppress. Plutarch outlined several instances where knowledge of ancient Greek plays served either to emancipate Greek prisoners or prevent
further war in Athens. Two thousand years later politicians and anti-war activists are still referencing ancient
Greeks plays to enhance arguments and to promote peace.
The plays confront us with our primal urges – dangerous feelings that we dare not voice but which the ancient
playwrights do. Their plays can offer us a means to safely examine these urges and fears. We can relate to
their protagonists. We can equate our superpowers with the ancient gods, our wars with the Trojan War and
the sparagmos of Pentheus with Gadaffi’s death. Prisoners can identify with Prometheus, abused women with
Medea and our young students with Iphigenia. As theatre directors we may be over-fanciful in making these
equations, nevertheless we find the ancient plays can offer powerful and pertinent resources.
Peggy Shannon, M.F.A.
[email protected]
“The Women and War Project”
Funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada in 2011, ‘The Women & War Project’
combines artistic creation, social science research, and mental health practice in a multi-year, multi-discipline,
and multi-national creative research study aimed specifically at the female experience of war. In order to
increase dialogue regarding women’s role in war locally, nationally, and globally; increase awareness of the
treatable nature of trauma-related symptoms as a result of exposure to war; and to reduce stigmatization of
these same trauma-related symptoms, theatre and dance artists, alongside social science researchers from
more than five countries are working together to determine whether ancient Greek female characters carrying
war-related plots and themes correlate for female active duty personnel, veterans and their extended family
members, and lay-women in modernity and if so, discover if these characters and plotlines can assist women
in dealing with PTSD and other war-related issues. The creative research team is aware that female characters
were once necessary to provide returning soldiers in antiquity the requisite emotional and psychological
distance needed to attend the theatre, and to express their subjective experience of the “traumatic events and
the desperate suffering caused as a result of military conflict” (Hall, 2010. pp. 104-155). It has been suggested
that attendance at these plays helped heal the psychological wounds of war of the male veterans (Zeitlin,
1995). Female characters became emotional surrogates to carry male experience and pain, thus enabling men
to psychologically dissociate from their own war-related trauma. (Hall, 2010). Artists and researchers within the
WWP question whether these same plays, full of strong female characters, can provide situational recognition
and catharsis for women today and not simply deliver surrogates for a male experience.
ABSTRACTS
Carly Stevenson
[email protected]
“‘To a cruel war I sent him’: Wounds and the Womb in Coriolanus”
When it comes to the Renaissance stage, what could be more befitting for the First Annual International Women and War conference than Shakespeare’s Coriolanus? This notoriously unpopular
tragedy deals explicitly with the role of women in a time of political unrest, leaving masculine
concepts of honor to exist as a secondary motif to female potency. The mother-son relationship is
integral to our understanding of the play, as it is Volumnia who succeeds over her son’s vengeful
pride when the appeals of Rome fail to move him. Dissuaded by love, respect, and perhaps a sense
of indebtedness towards the maternal figure, Caius Martius symbolically regresses to a state of
infantile vulnerability, thus allowing for the neutralizing female voice to rise above the dominant
discourse. This paper proposes that Coriolanus can be read as an artifact of early feminism; a text
that neither underestimates nor condescends the role of women in the war environment. On the
contrary, the character Volumnia is directly implied as an advocate of war, in that she states: ‘had I
a dozen sons… I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out
of action.’ The discourse of wounding, coupled with Volumnia’s dissociative behavior, signify that
Coriolanus is a text that lends itself to trauma theory, thus locating this topic at the heart of current
interdisciplinary research. Through analyzing the maternal relationship in Coriolanus, this paper
argues that theatre can prove a fertile site for psychological, medical and literary debate surrounding war and women’s place in, or outside, of it.
Amy Street, Ph.D., Psychologist, Women’s Health Sciences Division,
National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, Associate Professor,
Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine
[email protected]
“U.S. Women at War: Gender, Deployment Experiences, and
Post-deployment Adjustment Among Veterans of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”
Despite awareness of the changing scope of women’s roles in recent U.S. combat operations, significant questions remain about the specifics of these women’s deployment experiences and postdeployment adjustment. This presentation will review the history of women’s roles in U.S. combat
operations, with a focus on understanding women’s roles during deployment in support of the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. Data from a sample of 2,344 recent female and male Veterans will be
presented to quantify gender differences and similarities in deployment stressors including combat
exposure, aftermath of battle stressors, and sexual and gender harassment. This presentation will
also provide a historical perspective on women’s post-deployment adjustment, with a particular
focus on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as presenting data on gender differences and
similarities in mental health symptoms following deployment in support of wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Although there are important gender differences in deployment stressors and post-deployment
adjustment among this cohort, there are also significant similarities. Most importantly, the growing
population of female Veterans in the U.S.appear as resilient to deployment stressors as the male
Veterans.
ABSTRACTS
Olga Taxidou, Ph.D.
[email protected]
“Medea Comes Home: Medea: A World Apart performed by the Georgian Film Actors’ Studio”
In early October 1997 Medea: A World Apart, an adaptation that brings together two plays by Euripides, Medea and
Trojan Women, was performed at the GIFT Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia. The festival was the first of its kind after the
collapse of the Soviet Union and after the bloody civil war between Georgia and Abhazia. Indeed, it was an attempt to
bridge the divisions created by that war and, as the name suggests, cultural events, particularly theatrical ones, were
presented as gifts, offerings within a broader process of peace and reconciliation. This paper will look at the ways the
adaptation and the specific production re-works the original plays by Euripides and re-locates them within contemporary crises and anxieties about ‘homes’ and ‘nationhoods’, about borders and boundaries. Georgia, the site of ancient
Colchis, located at the edge of Europe acts as the appropriate geopolitical and metaphorical topos to re-examine the
fraught relationships - ones already present in the Euripidean texts - between ‘barbarism and civilisation’, empire
and culture. The figure of Medea herself acts as a gestus of the constitutive relationships between gender, desire
and empire. The performer playing the role of Medea, Keti Dolizde, was also responsible for re-activating the ‘White
Scarves’ movement in Georgia, a women’s peace movement that originated in the middle ages. The paper will look at
the ways the specific identity of this performer helped to create this modern Medea. This production went to Sarajevo
the following year and then to Edinburgh, Warsaw and Moscow.
Naomi Tonooka, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo
[email protected]
“The Structure of Sacrifice: Iphigenia at Aulis”
The paper will discuss the contemporary significance of Iphigenia at Aulis, as the personal sacrifice for the nation (or
for the public good) is an ideologically motivated notion that still structures our understanding of, and justification for,
our position in relation to war and a war-like situation. Although Japan has not directly experienced war since the end
of World War II, the earthquake and the subsequent disaster at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima poses one of the
ultimate ethical questions as to who is to sacrifice oneself for the “public good.” The ideology that justifies a sacrifice
is what the Japanese philosopher Tetsuya Takahashi calls the “structure of sacrifice,” which conceals the structure of
power relations that demands a sacrifice of a certain group of people. The play shows the suppression of voice of the
sacrificed, and it challenges the reader/audience to listen to the suppressed voice.
Anne C. Wagner
[email protected]
“Critical reflections on interviews conducted with displaced Darfuri women in South Sudan”
Darfur, Sudan is the site of this century’s first genocide, beginning in 2003 with the death of over 300,000 civilians and
the displacement of over 2.7 million individuals. Already having survived a generation’s worth of conflict prior to the
beginning of the genocide due to the civil war in Sudan between the north and the south, the people of Darfur have
experienced tremendous instability and threat. In 2008 and 2009, the author traveled to Sudan to interview the inhabitants of the internally displaced persons camps in South Sudan who were largely ignored by media coverage focusing
on the refugees in Chad in the large United Nations camps. As a representative of the youth-based anti-genocide advocacy organization Stand Canada, the author sought to investigate the experience of the women in the camps and bring
their stories back to Canada to advocate to the government to provide stronger support to end the ongoing conflict.
These reflections, developed from a critical lens, based both in photos and the words of the interviewees, as well as
the author’s own self-reflection, investigate the role of women in the Darfuri genocide and rebuilding in South Sudan,
the influence of male interpreters on women’s recounting of difficult events, and the role of Western “assistance” in
ethnically-based conflicts from the perspective of an advocate-turned-researcher.
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