A Constructive Love-Hate Relationship: Modern Theatre Cynics as Theatre Innovators

In seiner 2006 ins Deutsche übersetzten Studie zum anti-theatralischen Drama der Hochmoderne ist der US-amerikanische Literaturwissenschaftler Martin Puchner einem interessanten Paradox auf der Spur: Er zeigt u.a. am Beispiel der Lesestücke von Stéphane Mallarmé und Gertrude Stein sowie an Bertolt Brechts und Samuel Becketts Entwürfen eines ‚diegetischen Theaters‘, wie gerade der Widerstand gegen ein auf schauspielerischer Verkörperung basierendes, mimetisches Theater zu dessen Erneuerung beiträgt. Dabei fungiert die Kategorie der (Anti-)Theatralität, die Puchner in die Erforschung der literarischen Moderne einführt, als methodisches Bindeglied zwischen Literatur- und Theaterwissenschaft.In this study on the anti-theatrical tendency of high modern drama, American comparative literature scholar Martin Puchner unearths an interesting paradox: Armed with examples such as the unstaged plays of Stéphane Mallarmé and Gertrude Stein and the "diegetic theatre" of Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett, Puchner demonstrates how it is the very rejection of a mimetic theatre based on dramatic embodiment that contributes to its renewal. In the process, Puchner brings the concept of (anti-)theatricality to literary modernism and forges a methodological link between the fields of literary and theatre studies

Countering the Eurocentric Gaze? Europe in the Antipodean Filmic Imagination

This article explores how Europe is depicted in contemporary Antipodean films by drawing on the example of An Angel at my Table (1990), Romulus, My Father (2007), Mr. Pip (2012), and Dead Europe (2012). The comparative case study of these cinematic adaptations shows, first, how (British) literature shapes the protagonists’ encounter with Europe. Second, the author examines whether the films perpetuate or counter the Eurocentric gaze. She argues that Campion and Roxburgh highlight characters’ diasporic longing for, and their catalytic or unhealthy attachment to, Europe as “imaginary homeland.” Adamson’s adaptation, in turn, decenters Eurocentric visions, while Krawitz’s portrayal of Europe as “traumascape” rejects the alleged superiority of an idealized Europe even more forcefully than Tsiolkas’s novel does. Of the four films, only Mr. Pip visually engages postcolonial discourses and, at least indirectly, relates to the settler colonial contexts to which all four films belong. Ultimately, the films’ shared engagement with Europe broadens the national focus of earlier Antipodean cinema, offering various avenues to rethink identity and belonging beyond the national and the postcolonial