Professor Anselm Heinrich
- Professor (Theatre, Film & Television Studies)
telephone:
0141 3306804
email:
Anselm.Heinrich@glasgow.ac.uk
R305 Level 3, TFTV Studies, Gilmorehill Halls, Glasgow G12 8QQ
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1634-5236Research interests
Research Interests
- German and British theatre history, especially regional and national theatres, audiences and repertoires, issues of funding, censorship, and propaganda, including comparative approaches in historiography
- dramaturgy
- applied theatre
- contemporary German and British playwriting
- theatre in exile
- cultural policy
Biography
I am a Senior Lecturer on Theatre Studies, and the College International Dean in the College of Arts. Born in 1971 in Bühl in southern Germany and brought up in the Westphalian town of Schwerte I studied English, History and Pedagogy in Münster and graduated with the Staatsexamen and an MA. I then embarked on a PhD at the University of Hull, and subsequently worked as a teaching assistant (Lektor) in Modern Languages at the University of Hull and then as a Research Associate at Lancaster University before moving to Glasgow in 2006. I passionately support Borussia Dortmund, play football (badly) and the drums (mediocre), but love doing both.
Research Projects
European theatre under German occupation during World War II
- international and interdisciplinary project looking at those theatres under German occupation which were run as German language playhouses. Such theatres were founded all over Europe in countries occupied by the Germans with clear propagandistic aims and a political role behind the front line
- symposium "Dramaturgies of War" in January 2018 (https://dramaturgyatglasgow.wordpress.com/portfolio/dramaturgies-of-war/)
- a number of linked publications already out including journal articles and a monograph with Routledge in 2017 (https://www.routledge.com/Theatre-in-Europe-Under-German-Occupation/Heinrich/p/book/9781138799530)
- funding received from RSE (2010, 2015, 2017), DAAD (2012), and further support received from the Goethe Institut Glasgow and Routledge publishers
Dramaturgy, performance and politics in pre- and post- 1989 East Germany
Focus on the collaboration between Alexander Weigel and Heiner Müller at the Deutsches Theater Berlin. The project will particularly discuss their work on three productions: The Scab (1988), Hamletmachine (1989/90) and Mauser (1991). The focus will be on the dramaturgical processes of the team Weigel-Müller with respect to these three productions (widely regarded as Müller's most influential) and in the context of radical political change outside of the theatre. Interviews, archival research, publications. Successful funding application to Carnegie Trust.
The reception of Shakespeare in Nazi Germany
International and interdisciplinary research project looking at a number of plays (Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Richard III, Taming of the Shrew) and investigating to what extent Nazi propaganda put claims on these and Shakespeare more generally. Early journal publication in New Theatre Quarterly (2012).
Grants
Research Grants:
- Research Awards Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) for projects in Ljubljana in 2017 (€1,100), Prague in 2015 (€2,000), and Lodz in 2009 (€1,700)
- Commonwealth Games grant for arts festival in 2014, with Professor Dimitris Eleftheriotis (£9,315)
- Carnegie Trust research award in 2012 (£1,200)
- Erasmus Staff Mobility grants, Freie Universität Berlin in 2011 and 2013 (€3,000)
- German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD): Senior Study Visit research award in 2010 (€1,900), Alumni grant in 2012 (€750)
Fellowships:
- John M. Ward Fellowship in Dance and Music for the Theatre, Houghton Library, Harvard University in 2016 ($3,600)
- Drew Research Fellowship, Gladstone Library, Hawarden (2015)
- Research Fellowship at Herder-Institut for Historical Research on East Central Europe in 2014 (£2,500)
Supervision
I welcome proposals for postgraduate supervision from prospective students on all topics relating to my research interests as listed above.
- Hu, Yidan
A Cultural Broker in a Postcolonial Context: On S. I. Hsiung's Cross-cultural Theatrical Narratives about China - Pattie, Ruairidh
Private and Public: Lieder in Clara Schumann’s circle
I currently supervise four PhD students with projects on DADA performance, Shakespeare and madness, contemporary political theatre in Germany, and dance in post-war Britain.
I have seen to successful completion two PhDs (on the National Theatre of Scotland, and institutional dramaturgy in Germany), and two MPhils.
Teaching
Teaching (undergraduate)
- Level 1: lectures on “Theatre and Society in 20th century Germany”
- Level 2: lectures on ancient Greek theatre, German classical theatre, postmodern/postdramatic practitioners (Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch in particular)
- Level 2 performance projects
- Honours option: “Modern German Theatre”
- Honours option: “Issues in Victorian and Edwardian Theatre”
- Honours option: "Applied Theatre and Social Arts"
- contributions to Honours options on "Interwar Cultures" and "Arts Criticism"
Teaching (postgraduate)
- MLitt in Dramaturgy and Playwriting: Debating Dramaturgy I (core course)
- PG Research Methods
- together with Vicky Price I set up and co-convened the MLitt in Theatre History
In addition I have teaching experiences in Translation Studies, German Studies, and History. I have previously taught at Hull and Lancaster Universities, as well as universities in Germany (FU Berlin), Poland (Lodz), and Slovenia (Maribor).
Additional information
Administration
I am Dean of Internalisation for the College of Arts.
Between 2011 and 2015 I was Head of Theatre Studies.
I also act as Theatre Studies’ Study Abroad and International Exchange Convenor. He would like to hear from prospective international students thinking about spending a year in Glasgow. I am also the first port of call for Glasgow Theatre Studies students intending to study abroad. Everyone interested in our ERASMUS exchanges with Berlin’s Free University and the University of Stockholm should also contact me.
External Responsibilities
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (www.heacademy.ac.uk)
- Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of Thalia Germanica (www.sfu.ca/thalia-germanica)
- Member of the executive committee of the Society for Theatre Research (www.str.org.uk)
- Member of the German History Society (www.germanhistorysociety.org.uk)
- Member of TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association, www.tapra.org)
- Associate Member of the Ruskin Library and Research Centre at Lancaster University (www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ruskin/)
Esteem
- Reader of article submissions for Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Theatre Research International, Theatre Journal, History Compass, Screen, Contemporary European History, Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Dance Chronicle, Modern Italy, East European Politics, Societies and Culture, International Review of Scottish Studies, Portal reviewer for e-journal Portal
- Reader of monograph submissions to Routledge, Berghahn, and Bloomsbury
- Reader of grant applications to Leverhulme Trust, RSE, DAAD, Portuguese Science Foundation
- External Examiner for MA Performance Research in the Drama Department, University of Bristol, and for BA Drama programme at Goldsmiths, University of London
- External PhD examiner at Goldsmiths, Warwick, and Glamorgan
Other Publications / Forthcoming Publications
Forthcoming:
- “Performance for Imagined Communities: Gladstone, the National Theatre and Contested Didactics of the Stage.” Politics, Performance and Popular Culture: Theatre and Society in Nineteenth-Century England. Katherine Newey and Peter Yeandle, eds. Manchester: Manchester University Press
- “Theater im Ruhrgebiet 1871-1945” (forthcoming publication with LiThes)
- “Theatre in Łódź under German Occupation during the Second World War.” (accepted for publication by Theatre History Studies, vol. 34 (2014))
Selected Reviews and Review Articles:
- “Politics and the Arts”. Review article of Der “Reichsdramaturg”. Rainer Schlösser und die Musiktheater- Politik in der NS- Zeit, Boris von Haken; and Bühnen der Politik. Die Oper in europäischen Gesellschaften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Sven Oliver Mueller, Jutta Toelle, Eds. Bulletin des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London 31, no. 1 (2009): 74-82.
- Queen Victoria and the Theatre of her Age, by Richard Schoch. Nineteenth Century Contexts 29.1 (2007): 63-66.
- Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945, by Ernst Klee. Review for H-Soz-Kult (May 2007)
- Hanns Johst: “Der Barde der SS”, by Rolf Düsterberg. Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London 28, no. 2 (2006): 100-105.
- Arts in Exile in Britain 1933-1945, by Shulmatith Behr and Marian Malet, eds. Review for www.theaterforschung.de (July 2006)
- Regular reviewer for Studies in Theatre and Performance, New Theatre Quarterly, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London, Modern Languages Review, H-Net German, H-Soz-u-Kult, and www.theaterforschung.de
Selected Conference Papers
- Invited speaker at symposia organised by the Berlin Wissenschaftszentrum: papers on subsidies to the performing arts, and perceptions of theatre in Germany and Britain (2011 and 2013)
- “Germanification, Cultural Mission, Holocaust: Theatre in Łódź during WWII”, invited speaker at international conference Łódź (2012)
- “Gladstone, the National Theatre and Contested Didactics of the Stage”, Politics, Performance and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain conference, University of Birmingham (2012)
- “CEMA and Regional Theatre, 1940-1945”, Regional Spaces, National Stages: Performance beyond London 1945-2010 conference, University of Reading (2010)
- “Nazi Thing Theatre”, Germania Remembered 1500-2009 conference, University of London (2009)
- “Dream Palaces – Regional Theatres in Britain and Germany at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century”, The Cultural Industries in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Britain and Germany Compared conference, German Historical Institute London (2009)
- “New Readings of Germany’s Classical Theatre”, Georgian Theatre conference in Richmond (September 2008)
- “York Memories – oral history and regional theatre”, SIBMAS theatre conference in Glasgow (2008)
- “Theatre in Britain during the Second World War”, Society for Theatre Research lecture series (2007)
- “John Ruskin and the Development of the National Theatre”, Life Writing conference, Lancaster University (2005)
- “Münster’s Theatre During the Third Reich”, Connecting Cultures conference, University of Kent (2004)
- “York’s Theatre Royal Between 1877 and 1945”, Shifting Scenes: Theatre Histories Beyond London conference, University of Manchester (2003)
- “Theatre Émigrés in Britain 1933-1945”, Thalia Germanica conference, Riga (2003)
- “Contemporary German Theatre and Drama”, invited to panel on contemporary European plays and playwrights at Festival of Contemporary European Plays in Huddersfield (2002)
Anselm has organised a conference on Ruskinian Theatre. The Victorian Theatre and the Visual Arts at Lancaster University in 2006. He was also part of the team which organised TaPRA 2013 (with Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).
Anselm has featured on the Goethe- Institut’s “Meet the Germans” project featuring Germans living abroad (www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lp/prj/mtg/gar/hei/deindex.htm). He has appeared on BBC Radio Scotland, and BBC Humberside (Radio and Television).
Anselm is also a translator. He has worked for different companies and organisations, including the University of Hull, and has done translations for Carolyne Choa- Minghella (film script of The Wisdom of Crocodiles, as shown in cinemas) and for Theatresearch. He has translated Sarah- Jane Dickinson’s play Not Yet for the Goethe- Institut.
His cooperation with the Goethe Institut Glasgow (http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/gla/deindex.htm) in particular has led to a number of events including a panel discussion on dramaturgy (with Maja Zade from the Berlin Schaubühne), talks by Alexander Weigel (long standing dramaturge at the Berlin Deutsches Theater) and an illustrated lecture by Robert Sturm, artistic director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.
