Introducing HoTS: History of Theatre Studies

This project investigates the history of theatre studies in Switzerland and Austria from a decentralized perspective. Theatre studies were ideologically highly relevant during the Nazi era; this in turn poses questions about whether exclusionary mechanisms founded on anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, misogyny or anti-democratic beliefs continued to be relevant when this discipline spread across the Germanspeaking countries after 1945. This digital platform serves to make parallel historical constellations visible that can then be mapped out on the basis of theatre researchers and their epistemes that were either included or excluded in the discipline.

The starting point for the project 'History of Theatre Studies: Swiss/Austrian Networks and Contexts' (HoTS) is the bitter realisation that the academic discipline of theatre studies benefited significantly from the Nazi regime, and that it was during this same period that it became properly established.
The ideological and propagandistic significance of theatre studies was beyond doubt for the National Socialists and this generation of professors. The majority of these scholars with links to National Socialism were removed from their posts after the end of the Second World War, yet they had all been reinstated within a few years. Until this generation finally retired, the Nazis’ temporary involvement in theatre studies was either greatly downplayed or not mentioned at all by representatives of the discipline. 

The project is carried out jointly by the University of Bern/ITW (lead agency) and the University of Vienna/tfm.

The project utilises a methodological mix of comparative source analysis, historical contextualisation and digital humanities. It combines research perspectives from theatre studies, transnational history, memory studies, gender studies, queer studies and cultural studies with methodological-theoretical foundations, analyses and procedures of the digital humanities.
To this day, there are very few studies that examine how the thematic and systematic foundations of theatre studies were actually laid during the Nazi era. The question thus arises as to what this past means for us today. This question forms the starting point for a research concept that addresses this past both critically and proactively. Two main paths are being pursued here: 1. The project is identifying Nazi theatre scholars, tracing their careers and publications during the Nazi era, and investigating their networks. 2. Theatre scholars who were persecuted are similarly being sought out, their life stories reconstructed and the existential ruptures investigated that they endured as a result of Nazi rule. Flight, exile and the Holocaust determined the fates of these researchers.

A key aim of the project is to open up perspectives on as-yet unwritten histories of the discipline and to make the mechanisms and consequences of exclusion visible. To this end, the research team is actively seeking data and insights regarding marginalised researchers and their networks at universities, within associations and societies, and in educational institutions outside the university sector. We are investigating the disruptions in the lives of marginalised theatre scholars (flight, exile, murder) and attempting to locate copies of their forgotten works in this field. The collected data will be made available on the online platform and contextualised through case studies. Furthermore, two works on theatre studies written during the Nazi era by persecuted female scholars are to be made accessible through publication.

The development of theatre studies was significantly promoted by Nazi academic and cultural policy. As members of the NSDAP or their sub-organisations a lot of theatre scholars such as Heinz Kindermann, Willi Flemming, Hans Heinrich Borcherdt, Franz Koch, Artur Kutscher, Hans Knudsen, Carl Niessen or Otto Zur Nedden collaborated with various NS institutions. They were interconnected through joint publications, reviews and mutually beneficial evaluations. This network helped these scholars secure successful academic positions, from which they defined the discipline of theatre studies in accordance with National Socialist principles.

Read further on: Case study The Carnival of Perpretators