Head

Prof. Dr. Erika Fischer-Lichte

Research Associates

Dr. Benjamin Wihstutz, M.A. / Frank Richarz, B.A.

Student Assistant

Sabrina Greifenhofer / Felix Stenger

Objective

Aesthetic experiences enabled in performances are characterized by liminal experiences which possess transformative power and challenge cultural dichotomies and basic patterns of perception: therein lies the fundamental premise of this project. During the first phase (2003-2006), our focus lay on the relationship between spectator and actor as well as on an intercultural comparison between different types of liminal experiences in performance. During its second phase (2007-2010), the project examined the political and ethical dimensions of liminal experiences in contemporary theatre and performance as a social heterotopia.

In its current third phase the project investigates to what extent the concept of liminal experience can also be related to long term transformations of the spectator’s habitus and aesthetic judgments. This can only be determined with a methodological shift to a historiographical perspective. The project concentrates on two eras that renegotiated the relationship between art and society within the theatre: firstly, the establishment of theatre as a space of art and aesthetic judgment around 1800 and, secondly, the ‘political theatre’ of the Weimar Republic as basis for an aesthetics of effect. 

Subproject 1: Aesthetic Judgment and the Establishment of Theatre as a Bourgeois Cultural Sphere around 1800

(Dr. des. Benjamin Wihstutz)

This project examines the aesthetic turn in German theatre around 1800 and its conditions of aesthetic experience and reception. It explores the new understanding of theatre as a cultural sphere and place of aesthetic judgment, especially at the Weimar Court Theatre under Goethe’s directorship and the Berlin National Theatre under Iffland. The project aims to highlight the nexus between the establishment of a new bourgeois habitus, community building, and a ‘sensus communis’ that had long-term effects on the art of theatre, perhaps still visible today.

By analyzing historical sources on audience reactions and the conflicts regarding taste and judgment, the focus lies on theatre as a liminal sphere between the new claim of aesthetic autonomy on the one hand and theatre as a social event and place of encounter on the other. The project examines the effect of theatre as a mass medium on long-term cultural transformations and the constitution of the bourgeois culture, habitus, and class by accumulating liminal experiences. 

Subproject 2: Aesthetic Education and Judgment in the Political Theatre of the Weimar Republic

(Frank Richarz, B.A.)

This project examines the political theatre of the Weimar Republic in Germany with a focus on the theatrical works of the stage directors Karlheinz Martin, Leopold Jessner, Erwin Piscator, and Bertolt Brecht as well as of the theatre groups of workers’ collectives. It investigates the long-term transformations of the spectators’ habitus and their subjectivization processes (Foucault) with regard to the theatres’ agenda of political and aesthetic education or agitation. By focusing on the tension between propagandist manipulation and the potentials of critique and emancipation, the project aims at a new perspective on the history of political theatre between the world wars and its claims to an aesthetics of effect. 

Subproject 3: A Theory of Aesthetic Effect on Long-Term Transformations

(Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Erika Fischer-Lichte)

Late 18^th century and early 20^th century aesthetics of effect, in their different versions, assumed that frequent visits to the theatre could have induced long-term transformations in the spectator. By referring to the results of the historiographical analyses of subproject 1 and 2, this project aims to develop a theory of the aesthetic effect of long-term cultural transformations and accumulated liminal experience. Here, the focus lies particularly on correlations between somatic changes and judgments, as well as the relationship between aesthetic experience and (aesthetic and non-aesthetic) judgment.