PhD in Performance and Media Studies Summer School, 25/07-07/08/04, University of Mainz, Germany - Call for Applications

Dear colleagues,

please forward to all who may be interested.
Thanbk you very much.

Please direct your inquiries to

Dr. Meike Wagner
Program Coordinator 
PhD Program in Performance and Media Studies
Institut for Theatre Studies
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität
55099 Mainz
Germany
E-Mail:performedia AT uni-mainz.de
http://www.performedia.uni-mainz.de



IPP Performance and Media Studies Summer School 2004
?Media and Beyond. Corporealities and Crises?

The IPP Summer School is a centre for learning in an international
context, offering courses to postgraduate and doctoral students with an
aim towards encouraging interdisciplinary study. All participants attend
lectures and workshops regularly and present their own projects in the
field of performance and media in working groups. In addition to academic
instruction there are practical workshops, debate meetings and informal
excursions. The academic staff of the IPP Summer School consists of
university teachers and other qualified professionals. All courses are
conducted in English.
        IPP Summer School students will acquire analytical tools and methods to
focus on performative practices as theatre, literature, performance art
and visual media. We support interdisciplinary perspectives by offering
seminars according to fields of interest as ?Media and Body?,
?Transformation of Bodies?, ?Media and Cultural Studies?, and ?Crises of
Mimesis?. The focus of attention will be on the social relevance of
aesthetic forms and practices mirrored in methodological approaches that
lead beyond textual and aesthetic analysis. IPP Summer School supports
postgraduate and doctoral students in developing methodological approaches
and in focussing the outline of their individual projects with an
intensive course programme.
IPP Summer School offers:
?       Methodological seminars by our international academic staff with 10 to
15 participants. Preliminary readings and term papers required. Students
can choose on seminar out of four.
?       Practical Workshops by qualified professionals. Students can choose one
workshop out of four.
?       Working groups with project presentations (30 min) for students and
group discussions by participants and academic staff. Student can attend
one working group according to their subject of study.
?       Plenary lectures by our international academic staff.

Seminars

S1
Michal Kobialka and Tomek Kitlinski
Tranforming the Body
The body boundaries mark the anatomy of the self. Mediating the body
always involves re-shaping, alteration and mutilation of its scheme ?
processes most vividly affecting the perpheries of the body. The seminar
will examine the processes and effects of these transformations and
investigate representations of the body such as the grotesque body, the
ailing body and the de- and re-codings of the gendered body.

S2
Malgorzata Sugiera and Freddie Rokem
The Crises of Mimesis
The seminar will focus on strategies of representation as used in late
19th century theatre and in contemporary performance in the context of the
current debate on the crisis of mimesis. Both forms of theatre deal with
these crises by means of fragmented form, the abandonment of the dramatic
text, the mix of various performative styles. The seminar will discuss the
problem of mimesis and provide methodological tools to investigate these
performative manifestations.

S3
Maaike Bleeker and Ian Maxwell
Mediating Bodies
The body seems to be more than ever an important topic in contemporary
performance and media research. The seminar will investigate mediating
bodies under three different perspectives: Corporeal literacy and the
adaptation and reshaping of the body dealing with media, the body of the
media and the self-reflexive strategies of fissure and the actual
mediation of the body operating with cultural constructs of the body.

S4
Mita Banerjee and John Storey
Tele-Visions
The seminar addresses the medium television from an interdisciplinary
perspective by combining approaches from media and cultural studies and
social sciences. Central to the discussions will be the way media content
is here constructed and the discursive conventions that are employed in
the case of different TV formats. The seminar will also consider the role
of television as a social insitution in mediating cultural and social
values.

Workshops
W1
Vava Stefanescu
Mediating Movement ? Body and Imaging
The workshop will explore the dramaturgy of corporeal signs from the
perspective of instant composition (real time composition) investigating
the impact of media upon the image of the dancing body and the ways in
which the use of media alters the body?s image on stage.  Vava Stefanescu
is a Romanian dancer and choreographer, founder and executive director of
MAD (Multi-Art Dance Centre), Bucharest. In the past decade, she had
several artistic residencies in France and Germany

W2
Agostino Di Scipio
Audible Ecosystemics - Technology and Sound
Agostino Di Scipio is a composer and researcher who has a special interest
in computer sound and recently ?audible ecosystemics?. He currently holds
a DAAD scholarship for outstanding artists. In his workshop he will
investigate the relationship of sound, space and the body. He will develop
interactive sound systems with the students.

W3
John Downie
Body Heat - Performing Global Warming
The starting point for the performance workshop is the crisis of the body
envisioning heat and global warming. John Downie is an outstanding
playwright, theatre and media director. He is especially interested in the
relationship between biological ?display? and human ?performance? and in
investigating these by means of performance and theatre.

W4
Markus Kiefer
Beyond the Looking Glass - Re-appropriating Media
The media workshop will engage in reconstructing media formats and
aesthetics to present distorted visions of media society and to
demonstrate thus the creative power of media art. Markus Kiefer is a media
artist and currently in the master class of Harald Schleicher at
University of Mainz.

The international academic and professional staff of this year's Summer
School
Christopher Balme (University of Mainz, D)
Mita Banerjee (University of Mainz, D)
Maaike Bleeker (University of Amsterdam, NL)
Matthew Causey (Trinity Colleg Dublin, IRE)
John Downie (Victoria University of Wellington, NZ)
Alfred Hornung (University of Mainz, D)
Markus Kiefer (University of Mainz, D)
Tomasz Kitlinski (University of Lublin, POL)
Anja Klöck (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, D)
Michal Kobialka (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA)
David Levin (University of Chicago, USA)
Peter Marx (University of Mainz, D)
Ian Maxwell (University of Sydney, AUS)
Josef Rauscher (University of Mainz, D)
Bernhard Reitz (University of Mainz, D)
Karl N. Renner (University of Mainz, D)
Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University, IL)
Kati Röttger (University of Mainz, D)
Brigitte Schultze (University of Mainz, D)
Agostino Di Scipio (L?Aquila, I)
Vava Stefanescu (Paris, F)
John Storey (Sunderland College, UK)
Malgorzata Sugiera (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, POL)
Meike Wagner (University of Mainz, D)

Please fill out the online application form until 15 May 2004 at:
http://www.performedia.uni-mainz.de
The application form and additional information will be posted on our
website at the end of February.
The application fee is 70 Euro. A limited number of travel and
accomodation stipends will be available for foreign students.

Dr. Meike Wagner
Institut für Theaterwissenschaft
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität
55099 Mainz
E-Mail:performedia AT uni-mainz.de