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

Seminar "MASKEN/SPIELE"
The mere fact that masks can be understood as a common symbol for theater shows the close connection between these two phenomena. In terms of cultural history, however, it is a complex relationship that is initially characterized by the question of how and why masked figures and plays emerge from festive culture and ritual practices in order to continue to exist on theater stages and thus under artistic auspices. Such developments subsequently led to a process of repression of masks in the service of humanist-bourgeois identity politics and - under modernist auspices - to aesthetic attempts at 'retheatralization' by means of masks. - Although the dynamics and transformations outlined here may primarily relate to European cultural history, it is nevertheless remarkable that similar development processes can also be observed in other cultural areas. In general, it is striking that similarities between artifacts and forms of play can sometimes be observed across large spatial distances and leaps in time that are difficult to explain. How, for example, can similarities between Balinese wayang topeng mask figures and those from the tradition of the Italian commedia all'improvviso be explained? However, as soon as non-European mask practices come into view, the question of the “exotic appeal” of or ethnological interest in masks also arises in the context of decolonization - both are reflected in the rich holdings of European museums and raise the question of how to deal adequately with corresponding artefacts in the present.

In the seminar, individual chapters of a cultural history of masks/games will be worked on together, resulting in an examination of both theoretical reflection and ritual and artistic practices. These exemplary studies will lead on the one hand to European cultural history and on the other to non-European cultures. Furthermore, contemporary masquerades and experiments in theater, film and media will also be examined as examples.

A list of specific topics will be discussed in the introductory phase of the seminar in parallel with the development of basic knowledge. Seminar participants are therefore expressly requested to think about which topics they would like to bring into the seminar.