Celebrating Intersections 2021: Border-Crossings 

In May, Central hosted Intersections, its annual postgraduate research conference.  The student-led event was organised by Central PhD candidates Nadine Deller and Paul Edwards.  

Intersections 2021 addressed the theme of ‘border-crossings’ and was inspired by the team’s collective research interests in promoting marginalised voices in the academy and in critically engaging with the ways research can transgress oppressive power dynamics across performance, theatre, research and lived experience.  

The conference consisted of a wide variety of presentations that addressed many permutations of what ‘border-crossing’ might look like.  These were spread across four different panels: 

• ‘Creating Space, Medicine and Emotion’,  

• ‘Contemporary Border-Crossings in Brit(ish) Theatre: Deconstructing genre, reshaping the canon’,  

• ‘At the Border: Rethinking parameters on identity and performance’ 

• ‘Living Borders: Bodies at the margin’.  

The day concluded with an address from conference keynote speaker Dr Kene Igweonu, ‘The Ignorant Researcher: Transgression as Emancipatory Practice’, which considered a reparative approach to radically rethinking how we dismantle oppressive structures inside and outside of institutions.  

Of their involvement in Intersections 2021: Border-Crossings, Nadine Deller and Paul Edwards said: 

“Organising the conference was a rewarding and challenging experience; considering the ongoing implications of coronavirus, Intersections was held online, with a positive turnout of 15 presentations from 11 institutions in 5 countries to an audience of over 100 registered attendees.  The day was a productive, inspiring, and fruitful event, which generated thought-provoking and nuanced conversation, reflecting the theme of ‘border-crossings’ in both content and form.”

The day was a productive, inspiring, and fruitful event, which generated thought-provoking and nuanced conversation, reflecting the theme of ‘border-crossings’ in both content and form.

Dr Tony Fisher, Central’s Reader in Theatre and Philosophy and Associate Director of Research (Research Degrees), said: 

“Intersections, like its sister event, Collisions (Central’s PhD festival of practice-based work) is a student-led event. It gives our PhDs not only the experience of organising a conference, from developing the call for papers to selecting the keynote speaker, but also an opportunity to shape the debate in the field. This year Nadine and Paul did a brilliant job, choosing an incisive theme around the problem of borders - both physical and metaphorical. It couldn’t have been more apposite, given the situation we are in both nationally and globally. The event unsurprisingly generated much discussion, and even though it was held on-line this year, it was a real pleasure to hear the commitment of early career researchers to the idea of theatre and performance as a way of engaging with profound social, cultural and political issues.”

It was a real pleasure to hear the commitment of early career researchers to the idea of theatre and performance as a way of engaging with profound social, cultural and political issues.

For more information about Intersections 2021: Border-Crossings, including the full list of events and speakers. 

Find out more about Research at Central, including our research culture and degrees.