Kati Röttger, born in Braunschweig, Germany, in 1958. Ph.D. from Free University Berlin. Habilitation from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Professor of Theatre Studies at University of Amsterdam.
Fellow (1 February 2013 – 30 June 2013)
Stages of Globalization: Spectacles of Society around 1800 and Today
The research project is focused on the central question to which extent specific relationships of the visible and the audible (image and word) in theatrical representations create orders of looking that perform national and/or transnational imaginations. Under this general thematic umbrella the first, historical, part examines the aesthetics of theatre as a “Leitmedium” in the late 18th-century German period of cultural nationalization. The second part concentrates on the image-politics after 9/11, against the background of the relationship between theatre and new media under the conditions of so called globalization. This leap into the 21st century is introduced by the hypothesis that the early 19th century as well as the early 21st century are confronted with a ‘spectacular impulse’ concomitant to social, media-technological and epistemological historical breaks. Both parts of the manuscript are linked by a systematically-theoretical elaboration of theatre as a medium of vision that combines picture-theoretical, media-phenomenological and discourse-analytical perspectives.
Selected Publications
Kati Röttger (ed.): Welt-Bild-Theater. Vol. 1: Politik des Wissens und der Bilder. Vol. 2: Bildästhetik im Bühnenraum. Schriftenreihe Forum Modernes Theater (Vol. 37 und 38 ) Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2010/ 2012.
Kati Röttger: “Beyond Medusa. Recovering History on Stage. Elfriede Jelinek’s Babel”, in: Arcadia, International Journal of Literary Culture, vol. 45 (2011), issue 2, 2010: Performing cultural trauma in theatre and film. (Guest eds.: Frederik le Roy, Christel Stalpeart, Sofie Verdoodt), p. 374-386.
Kati Röttger: “‘What do I See?’ The Order of Looking in Lessing’s Emilia Galotti”, in: Art History. Journal of the Association of Art Historians (33) 2, April 2010, S. 378-387.