Fri, 23.04.2021, 1 pm. - 9:30 pm.
To fathom the meaning and potential layers of interpretation of ANTIGONE for theater in Vietnam
© Goethe-Institut Hanoi
Antigone | Symposium 1
In cooperation with ZzzReview.
Antigone by Sophocles was written in ancient Greece about 2462 years ago. This may seem a long time ago. But there are surprisingly many aspects to this play which make it relevant as food of thought even in contemporary Vietnam.
There are for example parallels of Antigone with Vietnamese female heroines of history and parallels with Truyen Kieu. A strong female figure, taking responsibility for what she thinks should be done in a moment of crisis, with religion, karma and reflections about what should be a proper life in justice and dignity.
Theater directors, stage designers, composers, script writers, graphic novelists, literary critics, translators, activists for gender justice are welcome to apply for participation in the symposium. Let us jointly look at this jewel of World literature and find out how the audiences can be made interested in reading the play or seeing it on stage.
The first day of the symposium (April 23, 2021) is about INTERPRETING ANTIGONE.
We are pointing at some possible approaches towards an interpretation of ANTIGONE. What references can be made from Vietnamese history and culture to ANTIGONE? What role and image of women is conveyed in ANTIGONE? How does ANTIGONE differ from TRUYEN KIEU? Why must ANTIGONE die? Which other themes are hidden in this piece of world literature that can be unfolded in today's context?
| PROGRAM | Day 1: INTERPRETING ANTIGONE | |
| 1 pm. - 3:15 pm. | 11 ways towards ANTIGONE Zoom-Link |
| 4:30 pm. - 5:30 pm. |
11 results from the first day Zoom-Link |
| 7 pm. - 8:30 pm. |
Antigone on 5 German stages zoom-link |
The second day (April 24, 2021) is about aesthetic issues.
We look at recent productions of ANTIGONE on Vietnamese and German stages. We ask what artistic forms have they taken or which aesthetic directions may productions take in the future. We will invite presentations and ideas from Germany, Switzerland and Austria online.
The kaleidoscope of ideas and forms should ultimately stimulate the discussion of the directors present. With a view on ANTIGONE, we want to talk about the future of the theatre. This can refer to the audience's attention span, to technical ways of making use of the black box theatre stage, to the relationship between an authentic experience of action on the stage and the presence of the theatre on the Internet, and a lot more.
about the speakers
Nguyen Thi Minh (*1985)
got her Master (2010) and PhD (2019) degrees at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education. She is teaching there in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies. Her main research interests are comparative literature and film adaptation based on gender, subjectivity theory and semiotics. She was the visiting scholar in the University of Oregon (2018), participating in collaborative research activities in Japan (2017, 2019) and the United States (2017-2020), participating in organizing and presenting reports at many conferences at home and abroad. She is a translator of the first book by Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, into Vietnamese, the first to translate and introduce Judith Butler to Vietnamese audience, while also a translator and co-translator of some publications on philosophy, cultural studies and social science. Minh is the co-founder of The Ladder – a Learning Space for Community, a space for those who love wisdom to share academic knowledge and make it more available to everyone, especially the youth in Vietnam.
Quyen Nguyen (*1984)
is co-founder and chief editor of Zzz Review, a nonprofit online literary review in Vietnam, and an editor-at-large for Vietnam at Asymptote Journal. Quyen earned her BA in Literature from Vietnam National University, Hanoi in 2006. She holds a PhD in English literature from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore with a dissertation on James Joyce. Her research interests include literary theory, James Joyce, Irish literature, modernism, postmodernism, translation studies, and contemporary literature. Her works have been published by Palgrave Macmillan. Quyen Nguyen is also an English-Vietnamese translator with more than 14 years of experience; her published translations include "What we talk about when we talk about love" by Raymond Carver (co-translated), “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Kevin Hart (*1982)
is a Founding Faculty member at Fulbright University Vietnam. Prior to joining Fulbright, he served as a visiting lecturer at the USSH at Ho Chi Minh City. Before coming to Vietnam, he taught literature, humanities, and rhetoric classes at the University of California, San Diego, where he did his doctorate work in comparative literature, and at Fordham University in New York, where he completed his Master’s degree in English literature. At Fulbright, he is the major coordinator responsible for developing the Literary Studies program. His research centers on the 20th century novel and the intersection of literary studies with the social sciences, the natural sciences, and theories of architectural design. He also works in translation theory and practice, focusing on authors writing in English, Russian, and French. His selected recent articles have appeared in James Joyce Quarterly, and The Journal of Studies in the English Language, and Irish Studies Review. He has recently presented at the American Psychological Association (APA) Conference, at Leuphana University’s seminar on individualism in modern culture. He volunteers as a teacher for underprivileged children in Ho Chi Minh City and Ben Tre.
Le Nguyen Long (*1980)
got his Master degree at Hanoi National University of Education in 2004 and presently works on his PhD. He is a lecturer in the Department of Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University (VNU) in Hanoi. He has taught courses on ancient Greek and Roman literatures, American literature, comparative literature, globalization and diaspora literature of the 20th century. While working mainly as a scholar in the field of Western literature, especially American literature, he has recently widened his academic interests to the relationship between Vietnam and the West since the time of colonialism through the period of the Vietnam War up to the era of globalization. He is interested in such theoretical subjects as postcolonial theory, translation studies, subject theory, and Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Hoang Phong Tuan (*1978)
earned his MA in Literary Studies from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education in 2006 and his PhD in Literary Theory from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities in 2015. He is presently a lecturer in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Ho Chi Minh City University of Education. His main research interests are popular culture, the relations between social institutions and literary interpretations. He has published the book Literature, Reader, Institution (2017) and other articles relate to such issues as the history of conventions and institutions of reception in Vietnam, mass media and the re-writing of war memories, etc. By 2021, he has completed a 3-year project about the reception of Japanese popular culture funded by Japan Foundation. Some of his on-going projects involve the relationship between ideologies and literary reception, trauma in films and literature about wars, social institutions and the issue of freedom of creation.
Do Thuy Linh (*1983)
graduated from her B.A degree in English at the University of Massachusetts. She has been working full time and collaborating with various English publications such as Vietnam Net Bridge, Thanh Nien News, Tuoi Tre News, Sai Gon Giai Phong News, The Saigon Times Daily, Mon Ngon Vietnam, The Vietnam Literature Review, VNExpress International and The Vietnam News. She is also a freelance translator and is currently co-translating Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble for Women Publishing House.
Dr. Tran Kien (* 1985)
completed his LLB at Vietnam National University, Hanoi in 2007 and earned his PhD and LLM from the University of Glasgow (2015). He holds various positions at both international and national institutions reflecting his varied interests and commitments such as tenured lecturer at the School of Law, Vietnam National University, Hanoi; Affiliate at the School of Law, University of Glasgow, UK; Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Development Studies, Vietnam; Member of Scientific Committee in Legal Studies, National Foundation for Science & Technology Development; Academic Covenor, International Conference – Engaging with Vietnam: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Kien also serves as advisor, expert to many governmental bodies and international organizations.
Dr. Vu Duc Liem (*1986)
is a lecturer at Hanoi National University of Education. He was trained in Southeast Asian History and Southeast Asian Studies at Hanoi National University of Education (Vietnam), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), National University of Singapore (Singapore), and Hamburg University (Germany). His research interests center around political history of early modern Vietnam and history of early globalization in East and Southeast Asia. He has published widely in the subjects, including those by UC Berkeley, Manchester University Press, Japanese Association of Southeast Asian Studies, NIAS Press (Copenhagen), Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (BpB, Germany), ISEAS (Singapore)…
Veronika Maurer
studied philosophy and worked at the Burgtheater as a dramaturgy assistant with René Pollesch and Christoph Schlingensief, among others. From 2011 to 2014 she was engaged at the Residenztheater Munich, then at the Schauspielhaus Graz. From 2015 to 2020 she was dramaturge at the Volkstheater Wien, where she supervised productions by Yael Ronen, Robert Gerloff and Jessica Glause, curated the discussion series “Volkstheaterrechner” and an annual mini festival with guest performances from Eastern Europe.
Susanne Traub
is dramaturge, curator, author, studied theater studies, philosophy and musicology in Munich from 1988 to 1993. She then worked as a freelance and employed dramaturge for theaters, different festivals as well as many various performance projects. She taught regularly at various colleges and universities (Arnhem, Bochum, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Munich, Salzburg, Stockholm etc.), was entrusted with the research project “Dance with Politics and Politics with Dance” of the Saxon State Ministry at the Leipzig Dance Archive until mid-2001. She curated the interdisciplinary series of events Desired Body (1999) and Moving Thoughts (2000) in Leipzig and the exhibition Open the curtain (2003) on art and dance in interplay at the Kunsthalle Kiel. In 2012, she also took on leading responsibility for theater and dance at cultural department of the Goethe Institute in Munich. Since 2014 she is curating the Performing Architecture program series for the Goethe-Institute at the Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Wanda Golonka (*1958, Lyon)
was trained in contemporary dance by Rosella Hightower and at the Folkwang School, danced with Pina Bausch, among others. In 1985 she founded the group NEUER TANZ, which she led until 1995. From 2001 to 2009 she was director at the Schauspiel Frankfurt. Since 2013 she has been leading the MA Choreography course at the Inter-University Center of Dance in Berlin.
In her cross-border works between dance, performance, music and text, she deals with the material of theater as a physical experience. The central component is the sensual, aesthetic discovery of space, which she continually re-examines in terms of its perception of body and time.
www.wandagolonka.com