170610 SE MA 1.2. "Processes of Theatricality and Mediality" (2024S)

The Spanish theatre of the early modern period is a canonized story of success, as "theater of the Siglo de Oro": it was among the first – and probably the largest – of the early modern theater industries. It had hundreds of authors (most of them men), and thousands of plays. Little of this repertoire, however, is part of current theatre programming.

The class both offers an introduction to this theatre culture, and goes on to ask: Whose Gold was it?

The pluricultural, multiethnic, colonial-global Spanish Empire of the early modern period and its many stagings allow for many questions, both historical and current day: How is theater history instrumentalized? Who appears in the theater canon of the "Siglo de Oro," and in what place? Who does not appear at all, and who wrote this canon in the first place? What are the contexts of this theater, and who were its performers? How can we write a theatre history critical of hegemony and racisms?

The research-led class belongs to the field of theater history. Graduates will have, at MA level, general knowledge on Spanish theater of the early modern period that they can connect to their own research, e.g. in the fields of postcolonialism, critical historiography, drama research and performance historiography.

Knowledge of Spanish is not required to take this class.

The didactic formats of the seminar depend on the number of participants, meaning they are still open to change until the end of the de-registration period.
Plenary discussions with preparatory readings, group work phases and moderation inputs are planned.