The establishment of this new chair provides a strong impetus to the development of performance philosophy as relatively young field which foregrounds the dual question of how performance thinks and how thinking is performed – paying particular attention to the often unequal value given to different ways of knowing. 

The professor by special appointment will focus on three themes: performance philosophy, the human/non-human relationship and social justice – with the aim to strengthen in the first place opportunities for knowledge exchange between students, teachers and other researchers of University of Amsterdam and the Academy of Theatre and Dance (ATD), Amsterdam University of the Arts. Besides that, partners like the Climate Imaginaries coalition, the Amsterdam Research Institute of the Arts and Sciences (ARIAS) and the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) will be invited.

Building bridges

The tasks associated with the chair include developing collaborative research projects, shared teaching and the supervision of PhD students. Planned projects are particularly focussed on artistic research for climate justice and inventing formats and practices for how different knowledges can meet, beyond the hierarchies and inequalities frequently repeated by institutional norms. 

The times we currently live in require a deepening and strengthening of a dialogue between science and the arts. The new chair, which begins in September 2024 for 5 years, builds a crucial bridge to make this dialogue sustainable over the next years. Cull Ó Maoilearca will combine her professorship with her work as Lector for the bachelor and master departments of the Academy of Theatre and Dance.