Tsu-Chung Su

Aufenthalt

Mai 2024

Forschungsthema

»This is also the ›Passion for the Real‹. Passages to India of Great Masters of Contemporary Theater«

Projektbeschreibung

In the field of theatre and performance studies, there has been a prevailing interest in India, especially in the fields of yoga, the Vedas, epic literature, ritual and ceremony, philosophy, religion, and performing arts since the beginning of the 20th century. Many Western theatre practitioners—such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Eugenio Barba, Jerzy Grotowski, Richard Schechner, Peter Brook, and Phillip Zarrilli, to name only a few—have been drawn to various forms of spiritual quest, Indian theatre, and ritual performance. Their turn to India has transformed themselves, inspired many, initiated the intercultural theatre, and exerted a great impact on the formation of contemporary performance theory and practice. This project attempts to explore the role of Indian theatre, literature, and religion in the life and work of great masters of contemporary theater mentioned above. I will look into the problematics caused by and embedded in these great masters’ turn to India and investigate their diverging positions in facing and interpreting interculturalism.

Wissenschaftliches Profil

Tsu-Chung Su ist Professor für Anglistik an der National Taiwan Normal University. Zudem hat er verschiedene literaturwissenschaftliche Fachverbände in Taiwan geleitet, u.a. war er Präsident der Taiwan Shakespeare Association (TSA), Präsident der ROC English and American Literature Association (EALA) und Vizepräsident der ROC Comparative Literature Association. Auslandsaufenthalte führten ihn als Visiting Research Fellow an das University College London, als Gastprofessor an die Aberystwyth University, als Fulbright Senior Scholar an die Princeton University und als Visiting Scholar an die Harvard University. Er hat mehrere Forschungspreise erhalten, darunter den NTNU Award for Distinguished Research [&] Distinguished Professor, den National Science and Technology Council Award for Excellence in Research und den NSTC Research Project Grant. Su hat drei Monographien veröffentlicht: Artaud Event Book (2018, auf Chinesisch), The Anatomy of Hysteria: What It is, with Some of the Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Representations, and Several Critiques of It (2004), and The Writing of the Dionysian: The Dionysian in Modern Critical Theory (1995).

Veröffentlichungen (Auswahl)

• »The Qibla—A Never-Ending Story of Migration, Runaway, and Pilgrimage«, in:Studies in Theatre and Performance 41, 2 (2021), S. 1-21.
• »The Theatre of Essence in the Making: The Secret Art of EX-Theatre Asia’s Actor Training Approach«, in: Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 47, 1 (2021), S. 231-269.
• »Lila or Mela? Richard Schechner’s ›Play‹ of the Ramlila of Ramnagar«, in: [nbsp]Ivy I-Chu Chang und Iris H. Tuan (Hg.), Transnational Performance, Identity, and Mobility in Asia, Singapur: Palgrave Macmillan 2018.
• »Hijikata Tatsumi—Artaud’s True Heir? Corporeality and Spirituality in Hijikata and Artaud«, in: Peter Eckersall (Hg.), Beyond Contamination: Corporeality, Spirituality, and Pilgrimage in Northern Japan, Tokyo: Keio University Art Center 2016.
• »The Subjectiles at Work: The Secret Art of The 9 Fridas«, in: Tamkang Review 47, 1 (2016), S. 63-95.

Forschungskontext

Tsu-chung Su folgt einer Einladung von Zhiyi Yang, Professorin für Sinologie an der Goethe-Universität für Koranexegese an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main und Goethe-Fellow am Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.