A warm welcome to Abdul Karim Hakib, new PhD student of our ERC Project “Developing Theatre”

We are very pleased to announce that Abdul Karim Hakib joined the ERC Project “Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in Emerging Countries after 1945” in January, 2019. His PhD research will focus on Historicizing Theatre for Development (TfD).

Abdul Karim Hakib was born and educated in Ghana, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Theatre for Development. He has been, before joining LMU, a lecturer at the Theatre Arts Department of University of Ghana; the executive director of Global Arts and Development Centre-Ghana, the deputy chair of Arterial Network Ghana Chapter and the General Secretary of the ITI Centre in Ghana.

Karim is a theatre for development practitioner, who specializes in the use of the creative arts and culture for development. He has been engaged in a number of works for and with organizations like Solidaridad West Africa, Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana, Plan Ghana, Theatre for a Change, Africa Adaptation Program on Climate Change, United Nation Organization and UNESCO and other International organizations. He is a fellow of the National Arts Strategies in the USA, a creative community fellows programme that brings together a unique community of innovators committed to using arts and culture to design solutions for community problems.

Abdul Karim Hakib has directed a number of plays with varied focus and across genres and media. Notable among the works he directed are the Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, an adaptation of the iconic local Ghanaian movie “I Told You So” for the stage, the Wogbejeke series. He served as the casting director and as a publicist for Dr. Agyeman Ossei’s adaptation of Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels, The beautiful ones are not yet born and Osiris Rising.

His research interest covers Theatre for Development, performance studies, theatre and culture, intangible cultural heritage and performance, theatre and other media, and organizational politics and development.

17/07/201817/07/2018

Conference Philanthropy, Development and the Arts: Histories and Theories (23-25 July, 2018), Final Programme

The final programme of our conference Philanthropy, Development and the Arts: Histories and Theories is now online and can be accessed here: Philanthropy Conference_23-25 July 2018_ final programme

dates:

Monday, 23 July, 5pm –

Wednesday, 25 July, 5:30pm

conference venue:

Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung – Südliches Schlossrondell 23 –80638 Munich

Keynote speakers:

Monday, 23 July, 6pm:

Volker Berghahn (Columbia University, New York City): American Foundations, the Arts, and high Politics (1898–2018)

Tuesday, 24 July, 11am:

Inderjeet Parmar (City University of London): Foundations of the US-led Liberal International Order: From the ‘Rise to Globalism’ to ‘America First’

Registration is mandatory. Please register via e-mail to Gwendolin Lehnerer indicating your name and affiilation: gwendolinlehnerer@yahoo.com

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#philanthropyconference2018 #DevelopingTheatre #PhilanthropyMunich #GTHCentre

28/02/2018

PhD position, “Developing Theatre” (ERC project, LMU Munich)

Call for applications
PhD Student Position

The Department for Theatre Studies at LMU Munich is seeking to fill a Doctoral Position within the European Research Council project “Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in Emerging Countries after 1945”

Topic: Theatre for Development: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

Within the wider research project we are seeking to fill a research position leading to a doctorate. The candidate must have a strong interest in historical research/archival work because the larger project is historical in orientation. Experience of Theatre for Development projects would be useful but not essential.

Commencement: 1 September 2018 or soon after

Qualifications: The successful candidate will have an excellent academic track record. We expect a strong interest in the intersections between theatre/performance and development issues and a very high level of motivation to engage in theoretical and historiographical reflection.

– Excellent MA with thesis in theatre studies, history or anthropology

– Excellent (oral and written) communication skills in English; basic German language skills are beneficial but not required

– willingness to contribute to the work of the research group by attending meetings and other activities

Disabled candidates are preferentially considered in case of equal qualification. Applications from women are encouraged.

Salary: 65% of a full time position according to the TV-L 13 public service salary scales.

Tenure: The contract will be initially for two years with a further one year extension subject to a performance review.

For more information please contact

Prof. Christopher Balme (balme@lmu.de) or PD Dr. Nic Leonhardt (n.leonhardt@lmu.de).

Please send your applications with full CV including list of publications, letter of motivation, and references in one pdf document by March 31, 2018 to
E-Mail: n.leonhardt@lmu.de

17/10/2017

CfP: “Philanthropy, Development, and the Arts”, International Conference, 23-25 July, 2018

From 23-25 July, 2018, our ERC funded project Developing Theatre will be hosting its first international conference with a special focus on Philanthropy, Development and the Arts: Histories and Theories. At the conference, we seek to interrogate the impact of philanthropy on the field of arts – visual arts, theatre, music, dance, opera, drama education, etc. – between the 19^th and 21^st centuries. The conference aims at discussing the work, impact, successes and failures of private and corporate philanthropy and NGOs, including semi-statist organizations such as the Goethe Institut, or the British Council, from the perspectives of history, cultural history, political sciences, art and theatre history.

We are looking for paper proposals addressing the following aspects:

Shifting discourses of philanthropy in respect to arts and cultural funding
Philanthropic and NGO initiatives in the arts in countries such as Africa, India, Chile, etc.
From colonialism to philanthropy: the de/re-colonization of cultural aid
Philanthropy vs./ the state: how non-governmental can non-governmental organizations be?
Case studies on the private funding of arts and artists with a special focus on development
Case studies on field officers, representatives and ‘arts experts’ in charge of philanthropic foundations and NGOs
Soft power: arts philanthropy and cultural diplomacy
Other related topics will also be considered.

The complete call for papers can be downloaded here.

Deadline for paper proposals: 30 November, 2017.

The conference will take place from Monday, 23 to Wednesday, 25 July, 2018 at Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, Munich.

A preliminary programme will be available by spring 2018.

For any inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact PD Dr Nic Leonhardt, Associate Director of the Developing Theatre Project: n.leonhardt@lmu.de.

31/08/2017

Team “Developing Theatre” travelled to São Paulo.

The ERC-Project “Developing Theatre“, led by Prof. Dr. Christopher Balme, was represented at the Annual Conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR, 10th-14th July, 2017, São Paulo, Brazil) by Prof. Balme, Dr. Nic Leonhardt, Dr. Gautam Chakrabarti and Dr. Rashna D. Nicholson. The first three members spoke in a panel titled “Collective Modern Theater from the 1st Part of XXth Century and Beyond”. Prof. Balme spoke on “Theatrical modernism for the world: Theatrical Epistemic Communities 1920-1960”, and also introduced the ERC-Project to the audience, which was much larger than expected and necessitated a change of the venue to a larger room. He also demonstrated the beta-version of “Our History“, the Digital Humanities platform of the Project. There was, evidently, a lot of interest in this DH-interface and how it may redefine scholarly conceptualisations of global theatre history.

The ERC-Project “Developing Theatre” group, with Dr. Azadeh Sharifi (LMU-München).

Dr. Chakrabarti presented a paper, based on his sub-project within the ERC-Project, titled “The Red Bear has Awoken!: Soviet Engagement with Indian Theatre Artists in the Cold War”. He spoke about the Soviet connection of post-Independence India’s ‘progressive’ theatre. He sought, based on his archival and other researches since the beginning of the Project in end-2016, “to attempt a tentative theorisation of the Cold-War-era geopolitical spatialisation of Eurasian cultural geographies as a reactive and subversive function to Eastern Bloc conceptualisations of colonial modernity.”

Dr. Leonhardt‘s paper was titled ‘“…Enlarging the Boundaries of Human Knowledge“– by Means of Theatre: Multiple Theatricalities and the Philanthropic Agenda of Stabilizing Cultural Geographies after 1945’. She presented her research on various, mainly American philanthropists and the foundations established by them and sought to conceptualise philanthropy as a tool of cultural politics in the post-WW2 years. Both her paper and that of Dr. Chakrabarti led, during the Q&A, to animated discussions that underscored the current relevance of the research questions this Project seeks to foreground.

As part of the four-member “Developing Theatre” delegation, Dr. Nicholson spent most of her working hours at the Historiography Working Group. According to her, she “was moved by a series of thought-provoking keynote speeches, struck by the warmth and generosity of the conference volunteers who stood at all hours of the day at strategic points in Sao Paulo’s Butantã subway station and enjoyed the pão de queijo served up with our coffee each day.” We also noted the adequate presence of security personnel and are thankful to the organizers, from the University of São Paulo, for their special attention to the delegates’ well-being and security.The crowning glory of the conference was a farewell reception at an exciting theatrical space, which soon dissolved into dance and music that gave us a delightful impression of Brazilian joi de vivre!

The overall impression we had of the conference was that of a frenetic and dynamic environment that opened up multiple opportunities and pathways for dialogue and debate. We look forward to the next IFTR Conference in 2018 at Belgrade with pleasant expectations and fond memories of a colourful and productive experience in São Paulo.

05/07/2017

New Article Out Now: Theatrical Institutions in Motion (C. Balme)

The first peer-reviewed publication of the new ERC project “Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in Emerging Countries after 1945” just came out in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (vol. 31, 2, 2017).

In his paper “Theatrical Institutions in Motion: Developing Theatre in the Postcolonial Era” the project’s principal investigator Christopher Balme examines the complex transnational processes that led to an institutionalization of theatre in emerging nations after 1945.

Christopher Balme: “Theatrical Institutions in Motion: Developing Theatre in the Postcolonial Era”, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, vol. 31, no. 2, 2017, pp. 125–140.

Article available on Project MUSE.

30/06/2017

IFTR 2017 in São Paulo – Annual Conference

Since 1957, the year of founding of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), theatre scholars and IFTR members from all parts of the world (in fact from 44 different countries!) meet for their annual conference.

Both the conference theme and the location vary from year to year. The IFTR 2017 conference has a focus on Unstable Geographies: Multiple Theatricalities, and will be hosted by the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Five associates and researchers of the Centre for Global Theatre Histories and the ERC project Developing Theatre will be attending #IFTR2017 and present papers on their current topics of research:

Christopher Balme: Theatrical modernism for the world: Theatrical Epistemic Communities 1920-1960.

Gautam Chakrabarti: The Red Bear has Awoken!: Soviet Engagement with Indian Theatre Artists in the Cold War.

Nic Leonhardt: “… Enlarging the Boundaries of Human Knowledge“– by Means of Theatre: Multiple Theatricalities and the Philanthropic Agenda of Stabilizing Cultural Geographies after 1945.

Rashna Darius Nicholson: What’s in a name? The role of language in the invention of colonial and postcolonial South Asian theatre history

Azadeh Sharifi: Dis/Continuity of Post-migrant theatre in Germany theatre history.

19/06/2017

Facelift of GTH: new Centre, Logo, Website

Same agenda – new concept.

Same web address – new face.

New centre – new logo.

After five truly fruitful and successful years and due to its ongoing disciplinary relevance, we reframed the DFG funded research project Global Theatre Histories as a Centre for Global Theatre History.

Our new website went online recently. Check it out!

If you have any questions regarding the Centre’s agenda, possible fellowships, seminars, talks, etc, please do not hesitate to contact Nic Leonhardt, director of the GTH Centre, via n.leonhardt [at] lmu.de

We would like to thank Maryam Khosrovani for the logo !

Call for applications PhD Student Position

Call for applications
PhD Student Position