Deutsches Haus at NYU and the Department of German at NYU present a talk by Teresa Kovacs on “A Future in Ruins, Or, How To Make Theater After the End of the World”.

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, Kovacs 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, Kovacs argues, allows interesting insights into how to find radical futurities in the midst of a planet in ruins.

About the speaker:

Teresa Kovacs is Assistant Professor at the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University. Her current book project Theatre of the Void: Plasticity, Hauntology, and Nuclear Blast 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), Schreiben als Widerstand. Elfriede Jelinek & Herta Müller. (2017, co-ed. with Pia Janke), “Postdramatik”. Reflexion und Revision. (2015, co-ed. with Pia Janke), Schlingensief-Handbuch (in preparation, Metzler 2024, co-ed. with Peter Scheinpflug and Thomas Wortmann).

Date and Time: Tuesday, April 16^th, 2024 from 5:30PM-7:00PM

Location: Deutsches Haus at NYU, 42 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003

More infomation: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScIBF4rbM40qVIZrT0AB1JHXktxhbPcAQE7kTBNEFGp438gZA/viewform?usp=sf_link