The 2013 Conference will be at Miami University!

We are excited to announce that the 19th Annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference will be held on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, June 27 – 30, 2013. The theme: Radical Transformation.

“[T]he more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled.” – Paulo Freire

“Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.” – Augusto Boal

This year’s theme is inspired by the history of Oxford, Ohio, where In 1964 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) trained more than 1,000 volunteers for Freedom Summer, an effort to register disenfranchised African-American voters in Mississippi. The violence of the summer peaked in the abduction and murder of three Freedom Summer workers by the Ku Klux Klan. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the conditions: “Our nation sent out Peace Corps Volunteers throughout the under-developed nations of the world and none of them experienced the kind of brutality and savagery that these voter registration workers have suffered here in Mississippi.”

The work begun in Oxford, Ohio in the summer of 1964 continues to transform the world. PTO is thrilled to convene our conference on this historic site, to carry the banner first lifted by the Freedom Summer workers half a century ago.

We are now accepting proposals for conference presentations. For more information on the conference, or to submit your proposal, visit the Conference Page.