Call for Contributions for a panel sponsored by the International Brecht Society (IBS) at the Annual Conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), Cologne, Germany, June 2025

The next IFTR Annual Conference will happen from June 9–13, 2025, at the University of Cologne, Germany, under the motto Performing Carnival: Ekstasis / Subversion / Metamorphosis (please see the IFTR 2025 Call for Papers).   

We would like to organize an IBS-sponsored panel for the IFTR 2025 Conference that engages more specifically with Brecht and the Carnivalesque. (Depending on interest, we may be able to organize several panels.)

We invite a broad range of approaches to the topic of Brecht and the carnivalesque, including but not limited to the following:

 

• Epic Theatre and carnivalesque performance
• Carnival and estrangement (Verfremdung)
• Brecht and Mikhail Bakhtin
• Carnivalesque subversion in Brecht’s plays, prose, and poetry
• Brecht and Horatian, Juvenalian, and Menippean satire
• Brecht and the tradition of Shrovetide plays (Fastnachtsspiele)
• Brecht and the carnivalesque spirit of the Baroque era
• Figures of fools, clowns, and jesters in Brecht
• The influence of fairground culture on Brecht and his collaborators 

 

Please send an abstract (of 200 to 250 words) and a brief bio to Micha Braun (mibraun@uni-leipzig.de) and Markus Wessendorf (wessendo@hawaii.edu) by Jan. 8, 2025. If your abstract is accepted for the IBS-sponsored panel, you will then have to submit it to Cambridge Core by Jan. 15, 2025 after having either joined the IFTR or renewed your IFTR membership on the Cambridge Core Membership page (an IBS membership is not required to participate in the panel). Subsequent publication of selected contributions in E-CIBS (i.e.. Electronic Communications from the International Brecht Society) or in the peer-reviewed Brecht Yearbook is intended.