Performance: 10th Annual International Conference of the Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa

The conference aims to explore the role of performance in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the arts, and to examine its relevance in contemporary thought. 

Performance can be viewed in various ways, including in terms of the distinction, common to French authors in the 1960s, between the enunciated statement and the act of enunciation or speech act. This concept is central to the work of Foucault’s archeology, Lacan’s post-structuralist rehabilitation of the psychoanalytic tradition, and feminist theory, especially the work on performativity by Judith Butler and other fourth wave feminist theorists. Performance is also an enduring and crucial topic in dance and theatre studies. In addition, it has attracted significant attention in the philosophy of education.   

This conference will address various topics related to performance, such as the links between performance and gender studies, performance and the unconscious, performance and the body in dance and theatre, and the therapeutic value of performance. It will explore questions like how performance helps to account for the shift from structuralism to post-structuralism, and how performativity constitutes a sufficiently plastic concept in feminist theory.