Wir sind gekommen, doch wir sind gar nicht da : authenticity and identity on contemporary German stages
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- What does it mean to be authentic, and how might the concept of authenticity become politically and artistically solvent in the theater? My dissertation, entitled 'Wir sind gekommen, doch wir sind gar nicht da: Authenticity and Identity on the Contemporary German Stage, ' examines potential answers to these questions, particularly as posed by theaters that have responded to the demands and modes of US- style identity politics. It explores ways in which a particular understanding of authenticity has been held up as a "solution" to certain perceived shortcomings (particularly as related to issues of race and representation) in mainstage theaters across the country; how authenticity has been positioned as being politically, aesthetically, institutionally, and/or formally innovative; how a pragmatic authentic praxis in performance interacts with its theoretical problematization in German academia; and what potentially ambiguous implications authenticity may have for the work of the actor. My dissertation highlights both the potentialities and ambiguities of productions that have defined themselves as authentic, examining their ability to provide a platform for underrepresented voices while, perhaps, reproducing the very structures and dynamics they seek to counteract. At the same time, it fills a gap in scholarly literature lacking in historical studies of the past decade in German theater: it spans discussions on representation and voice in the early Beyond Belonging festivals in Berlin (2007-8); the heated debates on blackface during the 2012-13 season; the rise of so-called "postmigrant theater" at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße and Maxim Gorki theaters; and recent meta-theatrical works at the Maxim Gorki (2017) and Deutsches Theater (2020) that have cast authenticity on stage into an ethically ambiguous light. My work is both descriptive and analytical, centering as much on the analysis of theatrical performance and texts as on the politico-cultural discourse that surrounds them, in the dialogues and communicative slippages between critics, activists, academics, and theatermakers.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Goodling, Emily Sarah |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Eshel, Amir |
| Degree supervisor | Smith, Matthew Wilson |
| Thesis advisor | Eshel, Amir |
| Thesis advisor | Smith, Matthew Wilson |
| Thesis advisor | Daub, Adrian |
| Degree committee member | Daub, Adrian |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of German Studies |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Emily Goodling. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of German Studies. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/ww033sq2224 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Emily Sarah Goodling
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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