Beyond Oedipus . Topologies of a theatre of taking care

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Sebastian Kirsch
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 249492900

The project wants to analyze how contemporary theatre reflects upon an extensive transformation of genealogical relations which is one of the defining characteristics of a social change that can (with Deleuze) be titled as the >passage from disciplinary to control societies<. The leading assumption of the project says that theatre as a form is at least since the >Orestie< fundamentally and internally connected to the question of genealogical relations and sequences. It starts from the notice that the important periods of change in which theatre restated its forms (besides the ancient tragedy the Early Modern Age, the 18th and the early 20th century) also have been epochal breaks, restating the question how the relations and the >taking care< between generations can be organized. From this point of view, as the basic premise of the project says, the currently increasing appearance of choric and choreographic theatre forms can be described as specific work on a question which is also posed in very different theoretical contexts: the question if and how the relation between generations can be understood and regulated in other patterns than the >classical< one of paternal (oedipal) genealogy, which was described for example by Lévi-Strauss and early Lacan (and is already critical for a long time).The project develops its terminological approach from the newly dispute about topology, which, as a non-metric thinking of neighborhoods, relations and networks, was already discussed with regard to the possibility of other than paternally structured connections by thinkers like Deleuze, later Lacan or Michel Serres. Besides generic texts of the occidental theatre literature the most important artistic subjects are Laurent Chétouanes choreographic straight theatre and recent pieces by Elfriede Jelinek (especially Karin Beiers staging’s), two positions of contemporary theatre that do not just try to aesthetically respond to the transformations in genealogy, but that also open on the level of their content a large historical horizon reaching back to the >Ursprungszeiten des Theaters< (Theo Girshausen), touching for example ancient tragedy, Artaud, Brecht, Fellini, Girard, Goethe, Heidegger, Jünger, Kleist and Schleef. Further artistic material which is not yet certain at this moment can be added, according to requirements. The project shall be connected to the university department of theatre studies in Bochum. A monography shall be released.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants