The village of Christ. Institutional-theoretical and historical perspectives on Oberammergau and its passion play in 19th-21st centuries

• Applicants: Privatdozent Dr. Jan Mohr; Professorin Dr. Julia Stenzel
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature)
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321044634

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

The Oberammergau Passion Play dates back to a plague vow in 1633 and has been performed every ten years since then in unprecedented continuity. Despite massive socio-historical shifts and ruptures, fundamental re-writes of the play text and topological rearrangements, the municipality of Oberammergau today refers to a tradition of almost 400 years, which marks their Passion Play as singular in the field of comparable traditions in the Alpine region: Oberammergau as 'the' village of the passion play has become a model for early narrative films as well as for the foundation of a Passion play tradition in the USA, it became the model for an authentic folk theatre as well as for the thing plays under National Socialism. The interdisciplinary project in German studies, theatre studies and ethnology examines this complex constellation with a set of disciplinary methods, supplemented by transdisciplinary approaches. The joint work is based on a model of institutionality that is initially drawn from sociological institutional research and then supplemented by a historiographical and an aesthetic perspective: How can Oberammergau assert its singularity as an institution, what specific aesthetics, spatial arrangements and dispositifs contribute to its Passion Play being perceived on the one hand as (self-)stabilising tradition, on the other hand as open to a future beyond the Catholic vow play? The project discusses the spatial and temporal orders of the village as well as the travel discourses and dispositifs of Oberammergau, its theatre and its environment. It analyses the hybridisation of the play and the heterogeneity of its audiences and actors since the 19th century and examines the literary productivity of the Oberammergau phenomenon. A focus is on the materiality of the bodies and things involved in the play production and on their auratisation in an economics of souvenirs. Along with the 'things of the passion' the politics of selfarchiving and self-fashioning of the community also come to the fore, which suggest consistency and stability but are always differently integrated into narrative and performative contexts.

Publications

• Wege nach innen. Die Reise zum Oberammergauer Passionsspiel seit dem 19. Jh., in: (Off) The Beaten Track? Normierungen und Kanonisierungen des Reisens, hg. v. U. Schaffers, S. Neuhaus, H. Diekmannshenke. Würzburg 2018, 97-116
  Mohr
  
• A rabbi's passion, a hajj's play: Oberammergau and its Passion Play between performed history and histrionic place. Forum Modernes Theater, 30(1-2), 162-177.
  Stenzel, Julia
  
• Editorial: Reenacting Religion - Reacting to Religion. Vom Wiedererzählen und Wiederaufführen »religiöser' Praxen. Forum Modernes Theater, 30(1-2), 81-85.
  Stenzel, Julia
  
• Immersivity: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Spaces of Immersion. Ambiances.
  Freitag, Florian; Molter, Céline; Mücke, Laura Katharina; Rapp, Helena; Schlarb, Damien B.; Sommerlad, Elisabeth; Spahr, Clemens & Zerhoch, Dominic
  
• Monument und Sediment. Dingpolitik und Bildregimes im Oberammergauer Passionsspiel, in: Newsletter für Historische Mediologie 20, 10-24 2020
  Mohr; Stenzel
  
• Was das Spiel heilt, in: Triakontameron, hg. v. M. Bengert, J. Dünne, M. Walther, 10.4.2020
  Mohr & Stenzel
  
• Arbeit am Verräter. Zur Judasfigur in den Textfassungen und der Ikonographie des Oberammergauer Passionsspiels, in: Religiöses Wissen im mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Schauspiel, hg. v. K. Ridder, B. v. Lübke, M. Neumaier, Berlin, 395-425 2021
  Mohr; Stenzel
  
• Arma Christi. Passion als Glaubenszeugnis und die Lage der Dinge. Kriminalität in Literatur und Medien, 105-125. J.B. Metzler.
  Stenzel, Julia
  
• Ein Dorf sammelt sich. Oberammergau abseits der Passionsspiele: Selbstarchivierung, Selbstkuratierung und das Spiel mit der Tradition, in: Newsletter für Historische Mediologie 24, 3–14 2022
  Mohr; Stenzel
  
• Hinter den Bergen, im Mittelalter. Oberammergau und sein Passionsspiel im 19. Jh., in: Mikrokosmen. Ästhetische Formen und diskursive Figurationen einer Repräsentativität des Partikularen, hg. v. F. . Ammon, M. Waltenberger. Frankfurt a.M. u.a. 2022, 167-199
  Mohr
  
• The Ways of Things: Mobilizing Charismatic Objects in Oberammergau and Its Passion Play. Religions, 13(1), 71.
  Mohr, Jan & Stenzel, Julia
  
• ‚Made in Oberammergau‘. Materialität und Repräsentation der Oberammergauer Passions-Souvenirs, in: Medioscope, 1.7.2022
  Molter
  
• Im Volk. Oberammergaus Chöre zwischen Antike, Mittelalter und Moderne, in: Liturgische Chöre, politische Kollektive, hg. v. J. Bodenburg, S. Spreckelmeier. Münster 2023
  Stenzel
  
• Politics of the Oberammergau Passion Play. Routledge.
  Stenzel, Julia & Mohr, Jan