What Makes a City? The Dallas Institute has been asking this question for decades... and now that we're at SMU, we have invited colleagues from campus and beyond to consider anew how we imagine civic life. This symposium focuses on the dramatic forms of tragedy and comedy and how they might RENEW a city and its citizenry. Conceived in ancient Athens, these dramatic forms continue to provide a lens for us to understand our own contemporary imaginings of the city: the city we want, the city we lament, and the city we actually have. 

This work evolves out of an ongoing conversation within the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture's (DIHC) Center for Civic Leadership and its Sue Rose Summer Institute (SRSI), a summer program for Dallas-area teachers. The symposium extends this discussion into the civic realm, exploring the ancient connection between theatre and politics. Scholars from several different disciplines will examine tragedy and comedy as a foundation for serious and healthy political discourse within the contemporary city. the symposium, beginning with a film screening of Chaplin's City Lights on Friday night, extends into two sets of panels on the ancient and modern city on Saturday. The symposium concludes with selections from Shakespeare's Macbeth and As You Like It, imagining the interplay between theatre and the city, as well as the tragic and comic worlds. Collectively, we ask: What is the role of drama in understanding a city - whether the city is ancient or new? What might we envision for a "new city" - a new polis, a new politics? Beyond theatre, can other imaginative civic and urban forms express tragedy and comedy? The symposium is open to all.