The Department of Romance Studies
2019-2020
Dr. Selim Rauer
45344 Aesthetics of Utopia
Course B.A seminar, Second Semester
(Course taught in English)
“Aesthetics of Utopia” is an introductory course on the aesthetics and history of Western European post-war theater (focusing on France, Germany, and Italy). We will examine the philosophical, artistic and humanistic utopia that has been expressed with a large force throughout six decades after WWII by some essential European theater figures. Are we allowed to speak about a possible “Aesthetics, or Theater of Utopia,” and if so, how could it be characterized? Through this notion, we will question the importance of the traumatic and post-traumatic experiences of the Holocaust and colonialism in Europe and beyond. We will also look at how and why the legacy of the Moscow Art Theater founded by Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) and Vladimir Nemirovich Dantchenko (1858-1943) in 1898 has been artistically and intellectually vital for a whole generation of theater practitioners, from Jean Vilar (1912-1971) or Antoine Vitez (1930-1990) to Ariane Mnouchkine (1939), from Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) to Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) or even Peter Brook (1925). The second determining influence will also be that of the dramatist, poet and director Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Brecht had a lasting impact on post-war theatrical thought by proposing, through his conceptualization of “epic theater”, a totalizing vision of art theater: both as a space of political and artistic dialectical tension and recreation, and as a public space of awareness and actualization of history for the present, as Walter Benjamin scrutinized it so well (Understanding Brecht, Verso, 1998).
Three crucial figures of contemporary European theater have been intensely influenced by Brecht, but have also managed to surpass his artistic vision in their ability to renew a classical repertoire (from the Antique, Elizabethan, or 18th and 19th centuries repertories), creating new scenographic, and dramaturgic forms and interpretations, as well as pushing new barriers in terms of actor’s direction. Giorgio Strehler (1921-1997), Klaus-Michaël Grüber (1941-2008) and Patrice Chéreau (1944-2013), are the three great masters who have questioned a human condition marked by metaphysical loneliness, fear of oblivion and the failure of politico-religious ideals. Their humanist theater still resonates nowadays in the works and thoughts of many artists and spectators in theater and beyond. What were their sources of inspiration, the colleagues, authors, and fellows who accompanied them? How theater came into their lives as the most masterful discipline to “represent” their world, to address public and private matters, political and historical realities concerning their contemporaries and their imaginaries? These are the aspects we will try to examine together by approaching each constituent element of the living spectacle of their time, but also by addressing the ethical and moral dimensions that were imposed on these artists through their art and dialogues with writers, dramatists, and poets they decided to stage. Various printed and audiovisual documents will be used. At the end of this course, the participating students will form into one or several groups and work on their theater project by selecting one literary, dramatic or poetic piece of their choice, or even a topic to be developed as a work-in-progress piece. These projects are going to be elaborated both in class and outside. Each group or theater team will present at the end of the semester their aesthetic, literary and philosophical approaches concerning a contemporary audience situated in Jerusalem, or a different location of their choice.
The course will mainly be taught in the English language. Various studied texts and audiovisual documents will be in English, French, German and Italian.
Duties:
Presence 10%
Presentation in class on the topic to be submitted 10%
Homework 80%
Office hours: by appointment, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, 73 Building, room 406, selim.rauer@mail.huji.ac.il
Indicative bibliography and documentation
Adorno, Theodor; Horkheimer, Max. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by Edmund Jephcott.
Stanford: Standford University Press, 2002.
Althusser, Louis. On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.
Translated by G.M. Goshgarian. London: Verso, 2014.
Antelme, Robert. The Human Race. Translated by Jeffrey Haight & Annie Mahler.
Chicago: Marlboro Press – Northwestern University Press, 1998.
Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History” in Selected Writings, Volume 4 (1938-1940). Edited by
Howard Eiland & Michael Jennings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006, pp.389-400.
- Understanding Brecht. London: Verso, 1998.
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theater. Edited by Marc Silberman, Steve Giles and Tom Kuhn.
London: Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama, 1964-2015.
Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York: Touchstone Books, 1968-1996.
Chéreau, Patrice. J’y arriverai un jour. Paris: Actes Sud, 2009.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington.
New York: Grove Press, 1963.
Grüber, Klaus-Michael. Il faut que le théâtre passe à travers les larmes. Paris: Éditions du Regard, 2016.
Jameson, Fredric. “The Politics of Utopia” in New Left Review. N.25, Jan-Feb 2004, pp.35-54.
Layton, Geoffrey. In die Luft Schreiben: Luc Bondy und sein Theater. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2017.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. London: Routledge, 2006.
Stanislavsky, Konstantin. On the Art of the Stage. London: Faber & Faber, 1967.
Strehler, Giorgio. Un théâtre pour la vie. Paris: Fayard, 1978.
Vitez, Antoine. Le théâtre des idées. Paris: Gallimard, 2016.
2019-2020
Dr. Selim Rauer
45344 Aesthetics of Utopia
Course B.A seminar, Second Semester
(Course taught in English)
“Aesthetics of Utopia” is an introductory course on the aesthetics and history of Western European post-war theater (focusing on France, Germany, and Italy). We will examine the philosophical, artistic and humanistic utopia that has been expressed with a large force throughout six decades after WWII by some essential European theater figures. Are we allowed to speak about a possible “Aesthetics, or Theater of Utopia,” and if so, how could it be characterized? Through this notion, we will question the importance of the traumatic and post-traumatic experiences of the Holocaust and colonialism in Europe and beyond. We will also look at how and why the legacy of the Moscow Art Theater founded by Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) and Vladimir Nemirovich Dantchenko (1858-1943) in 1898 has been artistically and intellectually vital for a whole generation of theater practitioners, from Jean Vilar (1912-1971) or Antoine Vitez (1930-1990) to Ariane Mnouchkine (1939), from Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) to Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) or even Peter Brook (1925). The second determining influence will also be that of the dramatist, poet and director Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Brecht had a lasting impact on post-war theatrical thought by proposing, through his conceptualization of “epic theater”, a totalizing vision of art theater: both as a space of political and artistic dialectical tension and recreation, and as a public space of awareness and actualization of history for the present, as Walter Benjamin scrutinized it so well (Understanding Brecht, Verso, 1998).
Three crucial figures of contemporary European theater have been intensely influenced by Brecht, but have also managed to surpass his artistic vision in their ability to renew a classical repertoire (from the Antique, Elizabethan, or 18th and 19th centuries repertories), creating new scenographic, and dramaturgic forms and interpretations, as well as pushing new barriers in terms of actor’s direction. Giorgio Strehler (1921-1997), Klaus-Michaël Grüber (1941-2008) and Patrice Chéreau (1944-2013), are the three great masters who have questioned a human condition marked by metaphysical loneliness, fear of oblivion and the failure of politico-religious ideals. Their humanist theater still resonates nowadays in the works and thoughts of many artists and spectators in theater and beyond. What were their sources of inspiration, the colleagues, authors, and fellows who accompanied them? How theater came into their lives as the most masterful discipline to “represent” their world, to address public and private matters, political and historical realities concerning their contemporaries and their imaginaries? These are the aspects we will try to examine together by approaching each constituent element of the living spectacle of their time, but also by addressing the ethical and moral dimensions that were imposed on these artists through their art and dialogues with writers, dramatists, and poets they decided to stage. Various printed and audiovisual documents will be used. At the end of this course, the participating students will form into one or several groups and work on their theater project by selecting one literary, dramatic or poetic piece of their choice, or even a topic to be developed as a work-in-progress piece. These projects are going to be elaborated both in class and outside. Each group or theater team will present at the end of the semester their aesthetic, literary and philosophical approaches concerning a contemporary audience situated in Jerusalem, or a different location of their choice.
The course will mainly be taught in the English language. Various studied texts and audiovisual documents will be in English, French, German and Italian.
Duties:
Presence 10%
Presentation in class on the topic to be submitted 10%
Homework 80%
Office hours: by appointment, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, 73 Building, room 406, selim.rauer@mail.huji.ac.il
Indicative bibliography and documentation
Adorno, Theodor; Horkheimer, Max. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by Edmund Jephcott.
Stanford: Standford University Press, 2002.
Althusser, Louis. On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.
Translated by G.M. Goshgarian. London: Verso, 2014.
Antelme, Robert. The Human Race. Translated by Jeffrey Haight & Annie Mahler.
Chicago: Marlboro Press – Northwestern University Press, 1998.
Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History” in Selected Writings, Volume 4 (1938-1940). Edited by
Howard Eiland & Michael Jennings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006, pp.389-400.
- Understanding Brecht. London: Verso, 1998.
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theater. Edited by Marc Silberman, Steve Giles and Tom Kuhn.
London: Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama, 1964-2015.
Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. New York: Touchstone Books, 1968-1996.
Chéreau, Patrice. J’y arriverai un jour. Paris: Actes Sud, 2009.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington.
New York: Grove Press, 1963.
Grüber, Klaus-Michael. Il faut que le théâtre passe à travers les larmes. Paris: Éditions du Regard, 2016.
Jameson, Fredric. “The Politics of Utopia” in New Left Review. N.25, Jan-Feb 2004, pp.35-54.
Layton, Geoffrey. In die Luft Schreiben: Luc Bondy und sein Theater. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2017.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. London: Routledge, 2006.
Stanislavsky, Konstantin. On the Art of the Stage. London: Faber & Faber, 1967.
Strehler, Giorgio. Un théâtre pour la vie. Paris: Fayard, 1978.
Vitez, Antoine. Le théâtre des idées. Paris: Gallimard, 2016.
- Teacher: סלים ראוור