TALK: Alchemy and The Magic of Theater
Sue-Ellen Case (UCLA)
Wednesday, Nov. 16 / 5:00 PM / Free
Drama “Voice” Room, HSSB 1105
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On stage, the alchemist has been presented, among others,
by Jonson, Goethe, and Strindberg. Sue-Ellen Case will
share a preview of her next book, an exploration of
how the apparatus of theatre developed alongside the
"new" science in Europe, serving to displace
the transmutative practices of alchemy with observation
and iteration. The Arab science was overwritten by new,
specifically European inventions. Theater and the "new"
science installed the masculinized human subject who
learned to disdain a feminized virtual space of transformation,
insisting upon iteration as the form of representation.
The reception of this virtual space was constructed
through these laboratories and theaters, informing the
contemporary construction of techno-space. Sue-Ellen
Case is Professor and Chair of Critical Studies at the
School of Theater, Film and Television at the University
of California, Los Angeles.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Performance Studies RFG.
