Lecture (LEC)

• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inq

• Topic:
• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit

Topic: Political theater 20 & 21 cent

What is political theater? How are theater and politics related? What can political theater mean today? In this course, we will discuss these questions through selected plays by Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, René Pollesch, Milo Rau, and Kevin Rittberger. All of these playwrights draw on Brecht in one way or another, but use his political theater more as material that needs to be reinvented in the present. The plays we will discuss depart from traditional genre conventions, breaking the boundaries of the work and rejecting conventional dramaturgy. The intensive examination of one's own form, which tends to push content into the background, has led to the thesis of the apolitical in contemporary theater: it is too self-referential, without a moral statement. Hans-Thies Lehmann counters this accusation with the thesis that the political is revealed less in content than in form. The course takes this thesis as a starting point to ask about current political theories and their application in the field of theater, to get to know and discuss methodological approaches, and to outline the political in the theater of Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, René Pollesch, Milo Rau, and Kevin Rittberger. The seminar will not only discuss selected texts, but will also introduce students to German-language theater through practical exercises and workshops.