In keeping with my current academic trend, three events occurring on the 19th October have come into view. The Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (Heidelberg University, Ruperto Carola) is a public research university located in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. On the 19th October, 1386, the first lecture was held there, making Heidelberg the oldest university in Germany. It was the third university established in the Holy Roman Empire. In November 1386, Marsilius of Inghen was elected first rector of the university. The rector seal motto was semper apertus—i.e., "the book of learning is always open." The university grew up quickly and in March 1390, 185 students were enrolled at the university.
Today the university consists of twelve faculties and offers degree programs in some 100 disciplines. It is a German Excellence University, as well as a founding member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and the Coimbra Group The Coimbra Group is an association of long-established European comprehensive, multidisciplinary universities of high international standard committed to creating special academic and cultural ties in order to promote, for the benefit of its members, internationalization, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society. It is also the purpose of the Group to influence European education and research policy and to develop best practice through the mutual exchange of experience.
Martin Luther was awarded his Doctor of Theology on the 19th October 1512. In 1507, he had been ordained to the priesthood, and in 1508 began teaching theology at the University of Wittenberg. He received a Bachelor's degree in Biblical studies on 9th March 1508, and another Bachelor's degree in the Sentences by Peter Lombard in 1509. On 21st October 1512, was received into the senate of the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg, having been called to the position of Doctor in Bible. He spent the rest of his career in this position at the University of Wittenberg. After five years, on 31 October 1517, Luther wrote to his bishop, Albert of Mainz, protesting the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," which came to be known as The Ninety-Five Theses. 
The Polytechnic University of the Philippines (Filipino: Politeknikong Unibersidad ng Pilipinas) commonly known as PUP is a public research university in the Phillippines. It was founded on 19th October, 1904 as the Manila Business School, offering commerce-related courses. The university offers graduate and undergraduate degrees in accountancy, engineering, political science, social science, business, arts, agriculture, media and communications and associate programs.
By the way:
By the way:
I am in several minds as to whether or not I understand where it is I am heading, and whether, what I write, can truly be said to fall within this rather recent discipline of performance writing. My tutor (Jerome Fletcher) posits “The foundations of Performance Writing lie in a cross-artform, cross-disciplinary approach; writing can never be seen as an isolated, hermetically sealed practice. Rather, this is an approach which interrogates the area where writing collides or collaborates with visual art, live and mediated performance, digital arts, sonic arts, time based media, site specific and installation art, as well as page-base writing and book arts.” Dr. John Hall, one of the founders of this concept states, inter alia, “we wanted from the start a practical approach to writing that was driven by questions and not taught by solutions. Every act of writing is a partial reply”. Jerome Fletcher again. “It always starts by asking of the student, ‘what sort of texts do you want to make and how are you going to go about it?’ all the time allowing them the space to end up with something quite other than what they intended.” Caroline Bergvall, another founding member says (doing what she calls a Gertrude Stein): “So what is Performance writing not? Is Performance Writing not writing? Is it writing which performs not writes? Is it not performance which writes? But then does Writing not perform? And when does writing not perform? And what kind of not performance are we talking about? Is it not performance to write or is it not writing to perform?” and “…the performance of writing would be this observation which seeks to locate expressly the context and means for writing, both internal and external to language, whether they be activated for and through a stage, for and through a site, a time frame, a performer’s body, the body of a voice of the body of a page. ….it does rest with the idea that everything about a piece of work is active and carries meaning. Any treatment, any font, any blank, any punctuation, any intonation, any choice of materials, any blob, however seemingly peripheral to the work, is part of the work, carries it, opens it up, closes it in, determines it. This is its performance. Its point of impact.”
It strikes me then, that any symbol/sign/signifier/text, no matter how displayed/installed/sited/shown/uttered, has to be a pretty substantial reply or answer to whatever the question might be. Is the result similar to the American quiz show Jeopardy. The show has a unique answer-and-question format in which contestants are presented with clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in question form. So does the viewer/reader of a work of performance writing have to divine the question asked by the writer, from his/her interpretation of the work? Is any interpretation required? Does the work provide its own interpretation? Am I being flippant or disrespectful? I do feel that there is something here to pursue. I also believe that an approach to the subject, for me, will be through the further study of performance studies in general; at least I think so for now. The mere act of putting out a text does not necessarily make a performance, or does it?
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