Transcultural Theater outlines the idea of a transcultural theater as enabling an approximation to and an interaction with the foreign and the alien.
In consideration of the allure of fundamentalist and populist movements that promote the development and practices of xenophobia worldwide, this book makes a powerful plea for the art of theater as a medium of conviviality with (the) foreign(er) that should not be underestimated. This study contributes to transcultural experience, artistic practice, and education in the medium of theater. The book’s investigation extends far into space and time and pays particular attention to the relationship between aesthetic experience, artistic practice, and academic representation.
This book is for scholars and students as well as for all those working in the cultural field, especially in the field of cultural transfer.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: The Idea of Transcultural Theater
Chapter 1. In Becoming
Beyond Our Grasp
Theory, Experience, Idea
Theater-thinking
Writing Transcultural Theater
Brecht and Transcultural Theater
Chapter 2. The Topicality of Transcultural Theater
Time for Theater
Historical Constellation: Globalization and Fundamentalism
Chapter 3. Theatrical Imaginings
Globalization’s Theater of Images: The Situation Room
The Phantasmic Theater of Fundamentalism: PEGIDA
Chapter 4. Strangeness as the Site of Transcultural Theater
The Fascination with Faraway Strangeness: Artaud and Balinese Theater
Critique of Intercultural Theater
Reciprocal Exposure and the Appropriation of Cultural Traditions
Discovering Strangeness in Ownness
The Precarious Status of the Migrant
Chapter 5. Transit Existence
Turning Toward History: Reflecting Historically upon Cultural History
The Raft of the Medusa
Ghosts in Transit: Frank Castorf’s Dämonen
Brecht’s Migrant Writing
Part II: The World Space of Transcultural Theater
Chapter 6. The Theater of Becoming-World
Globalization and mondialisation
The Absence of Ground: The Groundless Motion of Transcultural Theater
"Theater can be the ship itself." Schiller: Seestücke [Sea Plays]
At the Back of Globalization
Chapter 7. The Ptolemaic Theater of the World
The Theology of the Ptolemaic Theater of the World
The Copernican Revolution
Chapter 8. The Theater of World Experience
World Experience as Theater Experience: Fatzer 2
Experiencing the World of Things: The Primacy of the Object and the Narcissistic Wound
Experiencing the World Transmedially: Situation Rooms
Experiencing the World in a Historical Echo Chamber
Part III: The Practice of Transcultural Theater
Chapter 9. The Turn to History
The Twofold Invocation of History
History as the Theater of Repetition
Chapter 10. The Rise and Fall of the Phantasm of National Culture
The Story of Origin of National Culture
The Symbolic Space and Body of the National Theater
The Spectral Return of the Past
Demolishing the Mausoleums of National Culture
Chapter 11. Repetition as the Action of Transcultural Theater
The Scene of Repetition: Brecht
Repetition and Border-crossing: Wolfram Höll’s Und dann
The Space-time of Repetition: Søren Kierkegaard’s Repetition
Theater of Repetition: Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Life & Times
Chapter 12. Revolution in the Caribbean: The Practice of Transcultural Inflection
Chapter 13. The Gesture as the Actor of Transcultural Theater
The Gesture’s Movement between Times and Spaces
The Pathos of the Gesture between Life and Death
The Futurity of the Gesture: Franz Kafka’s Nature Theater of Oklahoma
Chapter 14. Transcultural Theater as a Powerhouse of Emotion
The Power of Emotions
Separating, Dividing, Affect
The Stage of Transcultural Opening
Index
Biography
Günther Heeg is Director of the Centre of Competence for Theater, Leipzig University, Germany.
