In cooperation with the International Brecht Society (IBS), the Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus invites scholars from all disciplines (especially post-graduate and graduate students, dissertators, and other early career researchers) to present and discuss their work on Bertolt Brecht. We seek contributions that treat the thematic complex of social spaces in or with Brecht and his contemporaries.
Access, right of use, and the relationship between public and private spaces has always been shaped by class, race or ethnicity, age groups, gender, and other social power constellations and identity markers. Who is allowed to sit where on the bus, what access restrictions apply to public buildings, shopping centers, or playgrounds, which expressions of friendship and concern are allowed in public spaces, not only has to do with control of social norms but also with the actual exercise of power by majority positions and institutions. These “traditional” forms of differentiating access of the individual to social spaces are simultaneously relativized or continually modified in social contexts such as family and friendships, communities of work, solidarity or protest, as well as gender and “ethnic” group identities. But how do individuals and changing social groups relate to the space around them today? What experiences does the (urban) space allow and what is impermissible? How do behavior and conditions change in times of densification and simultaneous urban flight? Last but not least, the social distancing and uncertainty created by the global Covid pandemic have radically reshaped such relationships. While the home office was not an option for everyone (especially caregivers or other social service providers), for others confinement to the domestic sphere heightened gender or group-specific violence, educational deficits, or psychological disorders – quite apart from privatizing public service tasks such as school and college education, health care, and integrative social work. At the same time, the financial crisis and its aftermath are increasingly causing shifts, displacement, and completely new constellations in the labor and housing markets.
In the 1920s, Bertolt Brecht bore witness to structurally similar experiences in – among others – “Aus dem Lesebuch für Städtebewohner,” in the dramatic texts “Im Dickicht der Städte,” “Trommeln in der Nacht,” or “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny,” as well as in prose texts and fragments such as “Der Brotladen,” his various Caesar adaptations, or “Die unwürdige Greisin.” The rural exodus – leaving the provinces and moving to the cities during the late Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic – marked a massive change in the spatial and thus social behavior of many people towards one another. Accordingly, questions of living, working, visibility and disappearance, (hidden or public) care work, and the (criminal or organized) expropriation or appropriation of people by and in urban space play a role in his thinking and writing. Last but not least, class-conscious spatial practices of the “poorest of the poor” (Peachum) can be found in Brecht’s texts or those of his friend and creative sparring partner Walter Benjamin. To name some: “Einbahnstraße” or “Berliner Kindheit um 1900”, as well as “Die Dreigroschenoper” or the collaborative film project with Slatan Dudow and Ernst Ottwald “Kuhle Wampe, oder: Wem gehört die Welt?” Here we encounter a ‘psychogeography’ (as the Situationist International would later call it) and the performatively understood reading and production of spatial constellations. Using new technologies such as radio or film, they explored the communicative possibilities for utopian, future social orders and forms of articulation that transcend space and time.
With Brecht, Benjamin and other contemporaries the fifth edition of BAUSTELLE Brecht asks about such spatially and sociologically understood practices and processes of “placement” or “spacing” (Martina Löw) in a discontinuously changing living environment. Possible questions and thematic fields include but are not limited to:
- Which spatially expansive practices do people develop today and/or during Brecht’s pre-exile life in Berlin for dealing with the experiences of their respective present?
- How is a spatial hierarchy of different users conceived and realized in the present and/or during the Weimar Republic, and are there possible parallels? For example, has the pandemic or the new experience of an (un)limited, anonymous space (urban, digital, consumerist, activist) changed, increased, or added new aspects to the traditional gender and class-specific separation between the public and the private? What effects, discussed in theater or related media, did such social change have, for example, on women, queer people, and migrants?
- What types of economic and social precarity as well as class or gender-specific spatial practices can be depicted or investigated with Brecht in performance and theater?
- What effect does dissolving boundaries between workspaces and private life have in times when care work at home and outside the home (also for oneself) has become the top priority? How can theater or literature be effective in solidarity, empowerment, and at the same time mitigation?
- How did the ban on public gatherings and lack of access to the streets affect the political and aesthetic articulation of dissent in the 1920s and 2020s? What alternatives do the new media offer?
- Which models of a contemporary understanding of the public and the private are discernible with or against Brecht for our present and future?
Additional topical suggestions are, of course, welcome!
BAUSTELLE Brecht V will take place from the afternoon of November 30th to the evening of December 1st, 2023, in the Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus in Berlin. It is planned as an in-person event; among other things, the program includes a tour of the Brecht-Haus (Brecht and Weigel apartments, Brecht Archive). In order to expand the space for scholars who cannot or do not want to come for family, health, or ecological reasons, there is also the possibility of virtual participation. Partial reimbursement for travel and accommodation costs is planned in the form of a lump-sum allowance.
Contributions – in German or English – should last 20 minutes; also welcome are presentations of evidence, lectures, or performances that highlight their work-in-progress character and raise questions for general discussion. We intend to invite respondents from the IBS community for the panel presentations. Following the event, participants may submit contributions for possible publication to the online Communications from the IBS (https://e-cibs.org) or to the peer reviewed Brecht Yearbook/Brecht-Jahrbuch.
Please send an abstract of no more than 350 words and a biographical note by August 15 to: baustelle@lfbrecht.de. Selection of participants will be announced by mid-September.