Learning und Unlearning von Theaterwissen

Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been efforts in Munich to establish theater studies as an independent discipline at the university. In close collaboration with the Munich Theater Museum, the “Institute for Theater History” was founded for the first time at the University of Munich in 1926 under the direction of Germanist Hans Heinrich Borcherdt.

To mark this 100th anniversary, the Institute for Theater Studies at LMU Munich invites you to a panel discussion on the history of the discipline.

Together with moderator Meike Wagner (LMU Munich), theater scholars Christopher Balme (LMU Munich), Beate Hochholdinger-Reiterer (University of Bern), Jan Lazardzig (Free University of Berlin), Birgit Peter (University of Vienna), and Nora Probst (University of Cologne) will pose critical questions about the complex and ambivalent beginnings of the discipline since the 1920s—navigating between anti-literary gestures, the performative avant-garde, and nationalist community.

The discussion will explore diverse methods and perspectives in the history of the discipline to open up new approaches for narratives about, alongside, and in opposition to legendary as well as problematic founding fathers.