• Decarcerating the University:A Roundtable Discussion
• Courtney Erin Colligan (bio), Aaron Moore Ellis (bio), Nicholas Fesette (bio), Donatella Galella (bio), Megan E. Geigner (bio), Lindsay Livingston (bio), Ariel Nereson, Leticia L. Ridley (bio), and Misty Saribal (bio)

This roundtable discussion took place on Zoom on June 6, 2024, and grew out of the learning that I have experienced through the collective work of the voices assembled here: through various gatherings and actions, often at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference, this group of scholar-artist-activists has pushed our field to directly engage with the concerns of abolition and decarceration. Their Zine, included in this issue's Online Section, offers theatre, dance, and performance studies direct actions as well as philosophical inspiration for decarcerating our campuses, classrooms, and studios, and relations with one another and our own minds. I encourage readers to consult the Zine in their research, teaching, and community engagement efforts toward abolition. This roundtable is a way for those conversations to continue and to respond to ongoing crises and current world affairs. —Ariel Nereson, Theatre Journal coeditor

Our first question is, how can performance studies contribute to what contemporary abolition elders are calling for, which is the abolition of campus police and any ties to the prison industrial complex? I'm thinking about Davarian Baldwin when he talks about how higher ed campuses should be ground zero for police abolition, in part, he argues, because some campuses have the newest police departments, and some of them still do not [have police departments].¹ However, we're presently seeing, with the campus Palestinian BDS solidarity demonstrations and encampments, the unfinished but necessary Cops Off Campus movement, which is a great group that I have been involved with. And when I see [list(s) like] Eight Actions to Grow Abolition,² I always want to add to the list—make friends with people in the arts and theatre departments! We have great props, we know how to stage protests, direct chants, perform and communicate in live, spectacular, and impactful ways.

I want to start with an example of how performance and theatre contribute meaningfully to these abolition movements in material ways, to ponder how our skills might help with campus abolition movements. To get to my example, we did a disorientation [End Page E-1] tour on Louisiana State University's campus before the pandemic, and we happened to just randomly find in the prop closet a giant black wooden coffin that said, "RIP Education." And I decided everyone on the tour should carry this giant coffin around while we viewed areas of the campus connected with slavery, military, sexism, heterosexism, racism, ableism, and capitalist exploitation. The resulting spectacle and disruption to the campus status quo was something that I'm pretty sure wouldn't have happened if the disorientation tour had been led by the American studies, philosophy, or biology departments. So you could take that in many different ways, but I want to open that because sometimes within "traditional organizing," there is a bias toward antitheatrical methods, and that's a damn shame.

The language you were using to share this with us makes me think of antitheatrical prejudice, but also the current traffic of "performative," and what that means as something that indicates a lack of genuine investment in something, which is the opposite, of course, of what a lot of campus organizing is trying to indicate. And I know that Meredith Conti has written about the critique of high school students responding to gun violence, and being called crisis actors, so I think that language is so important, and that we know how to use it.³ I appreciate your bringing that forward.

I think that if we look at the legacy of protest specifically in the United States, I think of something like the Black Panther Party and how they wore a specific costume to the protest, that the gun was a prop and also a tool, but sort of thinking about how the language of theatre has always been integrating with protests in these movements and about how we can usher...

• 
  Decarcerating the University：圆桌讨论
• 
  Courtney Erin Colligan（生物）、Aaron Moore Ellis（生物）、Nicholas Fesette（生物）、Donatella Galella（生物）、Megan E. Geigner（生物）、Lindsay Livingston（生物）、Ariel Nereson、Leticia L. Ridley（生物）和 Misty Saribal（生物）

这次圆桌讨论于 2024 年 6 月 6 日在 Zoom 上举行，源于我通过聚集在这里的声音的集体工作所经历的学习：通过各种聚会和行动，通常是在高等教育戏剧协会 （ATHE） 会议上，这群学者-艺术家-活动家推动了我们的领域直接参与废除和监禁的担忧。他们的杂志包含在本期的“在线”部分，提供戏剧、舞蹈和表演研究的直接行动以及哲学灵感，以打破我们的校园、教室和工作室，以及与彼此和我们自己的思想的关系。我鼓励读者在研究、教学和社区参与废除死刑的努力中查阅 Zine。这次圆桌会议是这些对话继续进行并应对持续危机和当前世界事务的一种方式。—Ariel Nereson，Theatre Journal 联合编辑

我们的第一个问题是，表演研究如何为当代废除死刑长者的呼吁做出贡献，即废除校园警察以及与监狱工业综合体的任何联系？我想到了达瓦里安·鲍德温（Davarian Baldwin），当他谈到高等教育校园应该如何成为废除警察的起点时，他认为，部分原因是一些校园拥有最新的警察部门，而其中一些校园仍然没有 [警察部门]。¹ 然而，我们目前正在看到，在校园巴勒斯坦 BDS 团结示威和营地中，未完成但必要的 Cops Off Campus 运动，这是我参与的一个很棒的团体。当我看到 [像] Eight Actions to Grow Abolition 这样的列表时，² 我总是想添加到列表中——与艺术和戏剧部门的人交朋友！我们有很棒的道具，我们知道如何举办抗议活动、引导口号、以现场、壮观和有影响力的方式进行表演和交流。

我想从一个例子开始，说明表演和戏剧如何以物质方式为这些废奴运动做出有意义的贡献，以思考我们的技能如何帮助校园废除奴隶运动。举个例子，我们在疫情之前对路易斯安那州立大学的校园进行了一次迷失方向的 [End Page E-1] 参观，我们碰巧在道具柜里随机发现了一个巨大的黑色木棺材，上面写着“RIP Education”。我决定参观的每个人都应该带着这个巨大的棺材四处走动，同时我们参观了校园中与奴隶制、军队、性别歧视、异性恋、种族主义、能力歧视和资本主义剥削有关的区域。由此产生的奇观和对校园现状的破坏，我很确定，如果这次迷失方向之旅是由美国研究、哲学或生物学系领导的，就不会发生。所以你可以用许多不同的方式来理解它，但我想开放一下，因为有时在 “传统组织” 中，存在对反戏剧方法的偏见，这真是太可惜了。

你用来与我们分享这些的语言让我想起了反戏剧的偏见，但也想到了当前 “表演性 ”的传播，以及这意味着什么，表明对某物缺乏真正的投资，当然，这与许多校园组织试图表明的相反。我知道梅雷迪思·孔蒂 （Meredith Conti） 写过关于高中生应对枪支暴力的批评，并被称为危机演员，所以我认为这种语言非常重要，我们知道如何使用它。³ 我很感激你提出这个问题。

我认为，如果我们特别看一下美国抗议活动的遗产，我会想到像黑豹党（Black Panther Party）这样的东西，他们如何穿着特定的服装参加抗议活动，枪是一种道具，也是一种工具，但有点思考戏剧的语言是如何一直与这些运动中的抗议活动相结合的，以及我们如何才能引导......