(English version below)
CLIC nodigt jullie graag uit voor de eerstvolgende WOLEC-sessie die plaatsvindt op maandag 30 juni van 12:00 tot ten laatste 13:30 in 5C.03. Spreker Teresa Kovacs (Indiana University) zal een lezing geven met als titel: "End Time/s? Theater, Catastrophe, and a Future in Ruins". Deze lezing is een samenwerking met de onderzoeksgroep THALIA.
Teresa Kovacs is Universitair Docent bij het Departement van Germaanse Studies van Indiana University. Haar boek Theatre of the Void: Plasticity, Hauntology, and Nuclear Blast (Cornell UP 2025; German Theater der Leere, Theater der Zeit 2024) focust op de gebruiken en esthetische dimensie van werken van regiseurs and theatermakers zoals Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, en René Pollesch. Ze publiceert regelmatig over hedendaags theater en performance, theater theorie, transcultureel theater, als ook de politieke dimensie van esthetica. Een selectie van haar publicaties: Drama als Störung. Elfriede Jelineks Konzept des Sekundärdramas (transcript 2016), Postdramatic Theatre as transcultural Theatre (2018, co-ed. met Koku Nonoa), Schlingensief-Handbuch (Metzler 2025, co-ed. met Peter Scheinpflug and Thomas Wortmann), en The Theater of Milo Rau: Aesthetics – Ethics – Politics (forthcoming, Fink 2025, co-ed. met Tanja Nusser, Nicole Rizzo, en Anna-Maria Senuysal).
De voertaal is het Engels. Een broodjeslunch wordt voorzien. We vragen u om uw aanwezigheid ten laatste tegen 23 juni via deze link te bevestigen. Voor meer informatie over WOLEC, klik hier.
Hopelijk tot dan!
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CLIC is excited to invite you to the next WOLEC session, taking place on Monday 30 June from 12:00 till 13:30 in room 5C.03. Teresa Kovacs (Indiana University) will give a lecture titled: "End Time/s? Theater, Catastrophe, and a Future in Ruins". This lecture is a joint initiative with the alliance research group THALIA.
Teresa Kovacs is Assistant Professor at the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University. Her book Theatre of the Void: Plasticity, Hauntology, and Nuclear Blast (Cornell UP 2025; German: Theater der Leere, Theater der Zeit 2024) focuses on practices and aesthetics by directors and playwrights such as Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, and René Pollesch. She regularly publishes on contemporary theater and performance, theater theory, transcultural theater, as well as the politics of aesthetics. Publications (Selection): Drama als Störung. Elfriede Jelineks Konzept des Sekundärdramas (transcript 2016), Postdramatic Theatre as transcultural Theatre (2018, co-ed. with Koku Nonoa), Schlingensief-Handbuch (Metzler 2025, co-ed. with Peter Scheinpflug and Thomas Wortmann), and The Theater of Milo Rau: Aesthetics – Ethics – Politics (forthcoming, Fink 2025, co-ed. with Tanja Nusser, Nicole Rizzo, and Anna-Maria Senuysal).
The lecture will be held in English. A sandwich lunch will be provided. We ask you to confirm your presence via this link by 23 June. For more information about WOLEC, click here.
We hope to see you there!
Abstract
We seem to have arrived at the end—be it the end of democracy, of humanity, or of a livable planet. Living under this impression, theatre makers have started to question theatre’s ability to still be relevant in our present and have begun to search for new aesthetics and modes of production vis-à-vis the experience of end-times. This talk focuses on theatrical aesthetics that have started to evolve in the German-language theatrical landscape since the 1970s as a reaction to the experience of living at the end of the world. Analyzing the theatre of Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, and others, I will sketch the beginning of a ‘theatre of the void’ that understands catastrophe not as an endpoint after which there is mere nothingness, but as a realm of potential and possibility. Such a theatre, I argue, allows interesting insights into how to find radical futurities in the midst of a planet in ruins.
