The 28th Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO) Conference, Omaha 2025

Confronting Injustice: Transformation, Reparation, and Radical Imagination

Pre-conference workshop with Julian Boal: June 3-5, 2025

PTO Conference Dates: June 5-8, 2025

Location: University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska, USA

Para español          Para português

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 7, 2025 (with notification by the end of February) NOTE: Submissions can be made any time before that date. We will do our best to expedite the review of submissions from outside the continental United States to maximize planning time for those who submit. We can offer assistance with visa applications and other arrangements necessary to facilitate attendance at the conference.
Submit your proposal here!

Confronting Injustice: Transformation, Reparation, and Radical Imagination

James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed unless it is faced.” This quote so aptly captures the spirit of this year’s theme. In many parts of the world, horrific violence and oppression – often even active genocide or threats of genocide – present grave injustices that demand attention and organized action. We are in a bleak period, where self-preservation might cause many to want to hide their heads in the sand. It is truly time for transformation, reparation, and radical reimagining. More than ever it is a time to come together to stand up for liberty, for strategizing, and for collective healing.

The unique ways that Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal approached education and theatre provide inspiration and tools to transform our world into a more just and equitable society. Join us in the Gateway to the West, Omaha, Nebraska, seated on the ancestral homeland of the Omaha, Ponca, Otoe-Missouria and Ioway tribes. This conference will give opportunities for people to share and expand on their methods to create justice from the bottom up. In these bleak times we offer not only hope, but real practical ways to move toward a new society, regardless of who or what party is officially in power. We will explore work that truly counters many of our social ills, including restorative and transformative justice initiatives, abolitionist activism, healing practices, calls for reparations, student organizing across the country, environmental justice and the fight against environmental racism, food sovereignty, housing rights, and other ways people are reckoning and grappling with the current moment.

We seek proposals for workshops and panels that actively engage participants in practical, hands-on exercises, critical dialogues, and performances that explore stories of resilience, community power, and diverse strategies for understanding and acting in the world.

This conference is a platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, and building new coalitions. We encourage proposals that not only address challenges but also celebrate innovative solutions and victories that bring joy and inspire change.

So as to best support and amplify the work of Nebraska-based, local activists, artists, and educators who have direct experience with local challenges and opportunities, we strongly encourage you to offer proposals. Your insights, experience and perspectives on the challenges to making change are invaluable in understanding the nuances of the issues faced by local communities, and for rising together.

Furthermore, we are committed to including opportunities for youth participation and perspectives. The voices, ideas and innovations of the younger, rising generations are vital to navigating the dangerous terrain of which we speak. We encourage you to tap into the youth activists you know and support them to propose sessions.

We believe that through unity and creative action, we can transform adversity into a force for positive change. “Confronting Injustice: Transformation, Reparation, and Radical Imagination” reflects our dedication to addressing current pressing social issues and uniting diverse voices in the pursuit of a just and equitable world.

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For some generative questions, please see the end of this call. If you are not sure how to communicate some part of your idea or how to submit a conference proposal, you can email us at ptoomaha2025@gmail.com with a question or idea, and we can collaborate with you to develop your proposal. In addition, you can learn more about Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theatre of the Oppressed at www.ptoweb.org.

A note on language: We release this Call for Proposals in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and have the capacity to read and respond to proposals in those languages.

HOW TO APPLY TO SHARE SOMETHING AT THE CONFERENCE 

• Read the list of session formats at the bottom of the page and choose one that fits your work. 
• Check out the questions at the end of this call that are related to the theme above to get your ideas flowing. 
• Submit a proposal using the form (click here) by January 7, 2025.

Session lengths:

• Single Session: 90 minutes.
  • Papers will be grouped around topics. There will usually be 3 per session.
• Double Session: Two back-to-back 90-minute sessions with a 15-minute break between sessions.
  • We have limited space for double sessions and encourage submission of single sessions whenever possible. Participants may choose to attend only one half of a double session.

Session formats:

• Workshops: Interactive workshops that focus on exploring, explaining, and experiencing techniques and their applications. Methodologies should be rooted in liberatory education and/or TO techniques, or allied liberatory practices and anti-oppression work.
  • Workshops might present adaptations, expansions, and permutations of PO/TO techniques developed for various situations, circumstances, and populations, related liberatory practices, techniques of self and community care for folks directly engaged in movement-based or other social justice work, etc.
• Research Presentations: Presentations can include traditional papers, multi-modal offerings, and other ways of sharing information. They should present a summary of research about issues related to PO/TO or liberatory practices work and theory, or case studies that highlight liberatory artistic and educational techniques.
  • Each presentation should last approximately 15 minutes, excluding discussion. We will cluster presentations, usually in groups of 3, under a proposed theme, with time for dialogue. Not eligible for a double session.
• Dialogues and Discussions: These sessions provide spaces for group dialogues around specific, complex questions about liberatory work.
  • Sessions may be facilitated by one or more people and might include brief preparatory remarks by a pre-formed panel, discussions or debates between activists, artists, organizers, and/or popular educators, or more free-form conversations between attendees about a topic of interest. Everyone attending should be invited to participate either in the entire dialogue or in response to panel and debate statements.
  • PLEASE NOTE: Panel and invited discussion members are considered co-presenters and must be listed as such on the proposal form.
• Performances: Interactive performances that promote and problematize transformation,   liberation, social justice, and/or political engagement.
  • The conference should not be seen merely as a showcase, but rather as an opportunity to engage in interactive exploration of the performance itself, the topics about which it was created, or both. Performers are considered co-presenters and should be listed as such on the proposal form.

MORE QUESTIONS TO GET YOU THINKING ABOUT THIS YEAR’S THEME

We encourage submissions that contribute to the exploration of topics related to this year’s theme. Technique workshops, reports and papers, dialogues and performances are all welcome. Perhaps some questions that occurred to us while developing this year’s theme might inspire you to develop proposals or ask additional questions of your own. They are, in no particular order:

• How can TO and PO raise questions about the difficulty and risks of active resistance in the face of systemic oppression and the accompanying threats?
• What role does community-based theatre and education play in ensuring that stories of activism and social change remain in the bloodstream of working-class communities? How does dialogue around those stories promote the development of radical imagination?
• Can you offer papers, ideas, approaches, histories, and examples of acts of solidarity whereby liberatory theatre and educational practices have acted as a kind of people’s historic preservation? Can you offer workshops that share techniques for implementing such practices?
• How can transformative action and reparation be practiced within our communities to challenge and heal from systemic injustices?
• What role does radical imagination play in crafting new visions of justice, equity, and community empowerment amidst today’s crises?
• How do liberatory theatre and education techniques manifest themselves in different places and situations around the world? Should, and if so, how can we simultaneously support efforts to amplify the voices of groups facing and battling focused oppressions and unite those diverse voices in the pursuit of a just and equitable world?
• As we return to the city where PTO was born, it seems particularly appropriate to ask if there are ways PTO and its members can support social justice actions in and around Omaha? And how do local efforts on the ground in Omaha connect with larger global movements for justice and equity?

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE (for proposals for both online & in-person sessions): January 7, 2025 Submit your proposal here!