Women & Masks Inaugural Weekend: Day One

Schedule: https://sites.bu.edu/womenandmasks/events/accessing-conference-events/september-24-26/ This conference emerged from Felice Amato’s (CFA) abiding interest in women’s experiences and the conditions of their lives globally as explored and expressed through the arts. She is particularly interested in embodied experiences and specifically how material performance, such as the use of masks, costumes, and puppets, illuminates aspects of the private and social body (and the symbiosis of the two). Amato developed her interest in the interplay of the materially constructed and female body in her dissertation work on women, dolls, and performance. Since then, she has gone on to include masks in her inquiries, having experienced their power to generate a sense of bewilderment at one’s taken-for-granted body when a mask is worn. The use of the mask as a lens or a frame for inquiry also provided new insights across a range of circumstances. The activities are free and open and designed to include a broad range of contributions to the topic through invitations and the call for submissions. Despite the virtual nature of the conference, efforts are being made to include a range of modalities that place the body at the center of the research and inspire cross-over between fields and practices.