Need, Emergency, and the Void: Political Theater
About this Event
On Thursday, September 3 at 5:30 PM, the NYU Department of German and Deutsches Haus at NYU present "Need, Emergency, and the Void: Political Theater," in a talk by Benjamin Lewis Robinson (NYU) and Teresa Kovacs (Indiana University, Bloomington). The conversation will focus on their recent books on political theater in times of crisis.
In (Stanford University Press2026), Robinson argues that the modern political scene is dominated by a dramatic conception of emergency, which consequentially obscures underlying socioeconomic, infrastructural, and ecological conditions of need. Robinson shows how a more expansive political thinking can be gleaned by turning to the theater. In the German tradition, from Georg Büchner to Bertolt Brecht to Elfriede Jelinek, theater has responded to the coupled insurgence of need and emergency in modern politics by challenging the conventions of both theatrical and political representation.
In (Cornell University Press, 2025), Kovacs approaches theater through the catastrophes and ground-zeros of the technoscientific age. She shows that the innovative theatrical practices that have developed since the 1970s in the German-speaking space — from Heiner Müller to Elfriede Jelinek — not only critically examine the violence unleashed by such events but also recover a potentiality and possibility that inhabit them, exploring forms of survival and regeneration. As such, Kovacs argues, they offer a theatrical grammar that is of political and theoretical consequence for navigating the present. In dialogue about their books, the authors will reflect on what theater has to contribute to theory and to politics, especially when it comes to thinking through pressing contemporary issues like the right to have rights, biopolitics, nuclear politics, and the climate emergency. Please RSVP for in-person attendance.
About the Speakers:
is H. H. Remak Associate Professor at the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University. Her research encompasses political theater, theater in the Anthropocene, the comedic, and transcultural theater. She regularly publishes on Heiner Müller, Christoph Schlingensief, René Pollesch, Elfriede Jelinek, Florentina Holzinger, and Einar Schleef. She is author of Theater of the Void: Plasticity, Hauntology, and Nuclear Blast (Cornell University Press, 2025) Theater der Leere: Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Schlingensief, René Pollesch, Theater der Zeit, (2024) and Drama als Störung. Elfriede Jelineks Konzept des Sekundärdramas (transcript 2016). Together with Berlin-based playwright and director, Kevin Rittberger, she co-authored Der Messingkauf im Curazän (Theater der Zeit, 2026). In addition, she has co-edited numerous edited volumes on contemporary theater, among others, Milo Rau: Aesthetics - Ethics - Politics (Fink 2025, co-ed. Tanja Nusser, Anna Seynusal, Nicole Rizzo) and Schlingensief-Handbuch (Metzler 2025, co-ed. with Peter Scheinpflug and Thomas Wortmann).
is Assistant Professor of German at NYU. He is author of Need/Emergency: Political Theater in Exigent Times (2026) and Bureaucratic Fanatics: Modern Literature and the Passions of Rationalization (2019). Currently, he is finishing a book on the work of J. M. Coetzee titled Just Fiction. He is co editor with Juliane Prade-Weiss of the special issue of The Germanic Review “Schuld (guilt/debt) in the Anthropocene” and, with Francesco Guisti, the volume The Work of World Literature (2021).
Attendance:
While NYU has ended COVID-19 related restrictions and policies, we continue to remind and recommend to members of the NYU community that they stay up-to-date on their boosters and stay home if they feel sick. Masks are always welcome.
Accessibility:
The first floor of Deutsches Haus at NYU, where our auditorium is located and where a majority of our events take place, can be made wheelchair accessible through the use of our ramp. If you would like for a Deutsches Haus staff member to set up this ramp for you, please call our Front Desk at +1 212-998-8660 upon your arrival. For any other accessibility-related questions or concerns, please email us at [email protected] or call us at +1 212-998-8660.
Need, Emergency, and the Void: Political Theater is funded by the DAAD from funds of the German Federal Foreign Office (AA).
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00
