Colloquium48 / Society in Transformation

10. Dezember, 19h, Raum 6-301

Katrin Meyer: Popular sovereignty, women's suffrage, authoritarianism

Many contemporary democracies are struggling with authoritarian tendencies. In these debates, many commentators naively identify democratic structures with inclusion, equality and justice which they oppose to the new illiberal movements. In her talk, political philosopher Katrin Meyer will argue that the situation is more complex. Certain legal democratic structures can be considered undemocratic as it shows in the case of Switzerland where Swiss women were excluded from suffrage rights on a national level until 1971. This exclusion not only did last for decades, but also was formalized and reproduced in the 20th century by various legal procedures, authorized by the parliament, the executive power, the jurisdiction, and last but not least, the Swiss male voters who denied their female co-citizens their equal political rights by several popular votes on the cantonal and national level. If we want to understand the institutional conditions and the historical continuity of the contemporary rise of authoritarianism, we therefore have to critically reconsider the notion of popular sovereignty.

Katrin Meyer studied Philosophy, German Literature and Church History in Basel, Berlin and Paris. In 1997, she graduated with a PhD on the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. During her PhD, Meyer worked as a research assistant on a collected volume of Nietzsche's letters as well as at the Philosophy Department of the University of Basel. She, then, became a staff member of the General Secretariat of the Swiss National Foundation (SNF) in Bern. From 2002-2005, she was a research assistant in Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen and from 2005-2017, she was the coordinator of the Swiss Gender Studies Network in Basel. Meyer completed her post-doctoral research on theories of power, ranging from Michel Foucault to Hannah Arendt. Since 2012, she is a private lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Basel and since 2017, she is a senior research and teaching assistant in Gender Studies at the University of Zurich.

Colloquium48 / Society in Transformation

17. Dezember, 19h, Raum 6-301

Jörg Pohl: Theater Politics

What is political theater? What makes theater political? Is it the political subject matter or content of the play? Is there a political dimension in the theatrical medium itself, in its forms and devices? And does the institution of the theater fulfill a political function as a place where society tries to think and interpret itself? In his talk, Jörg Pohl, actor and co-director of the Schauspiel Theater Basel, will introduce these questions and discuss their actuality. He will do this by giving a short overview of the long history of theater politics from Antiquity over the Elizabethan era to Brecht. This will allow us to better understand our contemporary situation where new forms of artistic agitation and propaganda (agitprop) compete with autonomous conceptions of political theater. Pohl will argue that an emancipatory politics of theater must include the reorganization of theatrical production itself: Overcoming the authoritarian relations of traditional theater-making and introducing forms of participation and collective self-determination into the organization of artistic labour. 

Jörg Pohl was born in the Ruhr area in 1979. He initially lived there for 23 years, undisturbed by the influence of the theatre, in various run-down industrial towns. After very mediocre A-levels and community service, he was successfully unemployed for a year. Due to a misunderstanding ("There's a lot of money for little work in the theatre"), he ends up at drama school in Bochum. The misunderstanding is cleared up at the Bochum theatre: in fact, the money and the work are the other way round. Despite this sobering realisation, he follows Matthias Hartmann's call to the Schauspielhaus Zürich. From 2009 he is a member of the Thalia Theatre ensemble. In eleven years in Hamburg, Pohl has not only been involved in many roles (Danton, Hamlet, Richard III, Liliom, etc.), but also in debates about the abolition of authoritarian and outdated management structures in the theatre. He believes that it is possible to make art without fear and oppression. Perhaps even good art.