In November, I attended ASTR (American Society for Theatre Research), an incredibly inspiring conference in the field of theatre and performance studies. The theme of the conference this year was “Debating the Stakes in Theatre and Performance Scholarship,” and panels ranged from debating food in performance (the steaks in theatre and performance…) to the politics of performance.

This past year or so I’ve been accepting and coming out in all my nerdiness—and hesitantly been entering into conversations in the field we call “digital humanities.” Whether it’s a field, a set of methods spanning different disciplines, or even its own discipline is still quite up in the air—see Svensson 2010 for an interesting conversation on that, which includes HASTAC!

At the conference, there were some really interesting strides to make the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies, especially in a North American context, move in the direction of digital methods, projects, and theories. Specifically, I’d like to share some of my experiences in this post about my participation in one working group, my attendance in another working group, a panel presentation, and a meeting which laid some groundwork for a summer institute.

You can read about all of my experiences at the conference in my blog post on the HASTAC site.