Futures

Call for Proposals

Thinking long term about Higher Education in the UK seems both an urgent and demanding task in 2025. While precarity in the sector intensifies, with fears of up to 10,000 redundancies or job losses, calls for a substantial transformation of the existing model grow louder. In this hazardous landscape, especially so for the Arts and Humanities, we hear Roberto Poli’s warning in The Handbook of Future Studies (2024: 5) that “the traditional ‘command and control’ perspective is an illusion to be definitively abandoned” in favour of an attempt “to ‘feel’ the system, to test the steps to be taken in constant interaction with it, moving gently and being ready to take a different action if necessary”. Or, as Pedro de Senna (2019: 89) puts it in his discussion of the first Futures Literacy Lab developed using theatre tools, “the goal […] is of course, not to know the future, but to embrace its unknowability […] while we may accept the uncertainty, we work towards the construction of positive futures”.

Meanwhile, the roots of and routes into drama/theatre/performance careers continue to face many obstacles. Focusing specifically on England, the Calouste Gulbenkian’s 2023 report The Arts in Schools: Foundations for the Future paints a sobering picture of “a world where the arts had become ‘nice to have’, rather than an entitlement for all” (48). Yet it also ends on a hopeful note: “In the past, major shifts in education policy – such as in 1944 – have emerged from times of crisis. Might right now be just such a time?” (95). The new government has commissioned a review of the school curriculum with the pledge to put creativity at its heart; the final report is expected in the autumn. Alert to these developments, the Drama & Theatre Education Alliance (DTEA) continues to advocate for a coherent post-16 education strategy and for the creative industries, as the fastest growing sector in the UK economy, to support professional pathways for young people.

DramaHE and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire invite proposals for papers, panels, provocations and workshops prompted by the theme ‘futures’. Suggested topics are:
● What does the Drama/Theatre/Performance/Acting degree of the future look like and what pedagogical shifts are required?
● What synergies have been or should be created between the students of the future – currently at school – and university programmes in our field?
● How can our discipline(s) contribute to the “refreshed, coherent and evidence-based narrative” about the value of the arts that the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is calling for?
● How can solidarity be fostered among colleagues amid present and future threats to the survival of our discipline(s) in HE?
● In a global milieu where equality, diversity and inclusion are being questioned, how can we enhance and promote these values within and outside the studio or classroom? And how can legitimate demands for accessibility of learning be accommodated without compromising subject-specific benchmarks?
● Is the accelerated rise of digital technologies, especially GenAI, bringing about a new set of opportunities for drama and theatre or the danger of extinction?
● How is drama and theatre education responding to young people’s anxieties about the future, including the climate crisis?
● What is the future of interdisciplinarity and its potential institutional impact on HE? What successful collaborations between drama/theatre/performance and other areas are already occurring?
● What new knowledges and practices can emerge from the interaction of Theatre and Performance Studies with Future Studies?
● What utopian/dystopian visions of the future can we expect?

Host Institution

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire – Acting (formerly known as Birmingham School of Acting) has roots in the West Midlands dating from 1936. As part of Birmingham City University (BCU), it currently offers undergraduate and postgraduate provision in Acting, Applied Theatre and Stage Management, as well as research degrees in Performing Arts. Additionally, the Secondary Drama PGCE at BCU’s Education department is a key source of new teachers across the region.

Located in Britain’s second largest city, RBC Acting is part of a dynamic environment where local theatre companies collaborate with students and student productions take place at different venues across Birmingham. RBC is also home to the Centre for Interdisciplinary Performative Arts (CIPA), whose recent research has focused on interdisciplinary pedagogies. The conference will be hosted at the RBC main building, a purpose-built site which opened in 2017 in the Eastside ‘learning quarter’ of the city and where Music courses are taught.

Submission Guidelines

Abstract Submission Deadline: 12th May 2025
Notification of Acceptance: 30th May 2025

Please submit your abstract (200-300 words), along with a brief biography, to [email protected]

Any queries should be directed to the conference convenors, Paola Botham ([email protected]) and Glenn Noble ([email protected]).