PATTERNS

Video Interview with IRC-Fellow Narges Hashempour

Narges Hashempour, March 9, 2016

In this interview, IRC-Fellow Narges Hashempour, Iranian scholar, actress, director, writer, curator and dramaturge, talks about her connection to German theater and her first works as a director in Germany, introducing her comprehensive theater project Unwritten Whisper. She speaks about the role of women artists in Iran and the issues of gender in her own work. Explaining her motivation to expand her artistic work by a more academic dimension, she discusses the themes of her ph.d.-thesis on Iranian theater culture and gender performance. Pointing out the challenges caused by the mixing of her academic and her artistic work and by her cultural background, Narges Hashempour gives a thoughtful and differentiated insight into Iranian culture characterizing it as living "in-betweenness".

Video Interview with IRC-Fellow Cody Poulton

Cody Poulton, January 20, 2016

In this interview, IRC-Fellow Cody Poulton, Professor of Japanese literature and theater in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada, talks about his interests in and current research on drama and theater in Japan. After giving a short overview on the development of his research in the past twenty years, Poulton describes the scope and aims of his current research project in Berlin, which investigates how humanity’s place in the world is conceived of and represented in contemporary theater and performance in Japan.

Video Interview with IRC-Fellow Shen Lin

Shen Lin, January 12, 2016

In this interview, Shen Lin, the Chinese Professor for Theater Studies, Deputy Head of Research at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, Chief Editor of The Drama Journal, writer and translator, is introducing his research project "The Formal and the Political in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Performances.“ Shen Lin speaks about the dominant role of Shakespeare as a global theater figure, as well as – in a very personal manner – about his own project’s connection to the Center’s fields of research. En passent, he gives important insights into his work as a cultural consultant for China’s leading performance organizations. Surprisingly clearly, he finally discusses the question of how "political" theater can be in China...

Visiting Doctoral Candidates Program

Astrid Schenka, December 17, 2015

As of October 2015, the Research Center hosts four visiting doctoral candidates from India: Dwaipayan Chowdhury, Ankush Gupta, Anirban Kumar (all three from New Delhi) and Supriya Shukla (Hyderabad), all of whom will stay in Berlin for twelve months. The new initiative was launched in close collaboration with their home universities, the School of Arts [...]