Bard College Berlin Holds Transatlantic Conference on the Playwright Heiner Müller

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bard College Berlin coorganized a major public conference on Germany’s most important postwar dramatist, Heiner Müller (1929–1995). At the time of his death, Müller was one of the most influential cultural figures in Germany, serving as president of the newly unified German Academy of Arts and as codirector of the famed Berliner Ensemble (the theater Bertolt Brecht had founded in East Berlin some 50 years before). 

The conference, held October 3 to 5, took place partly in the former West German Academy of Arts in Berlin’s Tiergarten and partly in the Academy’s historical seat in the former East Berlin, next to the Brandenburg Gate. The event was featured in newspapers and magazines throughout Germany. 

Heiner Müller (c) Lothar Deus

During the conference Bard students from Annandale and Berlin had a chance to meet, listen and talk to some of Germany’s most prominent theater-makers, intellectuals, and political thinkers. Presenters included Gregor Gysi, leader of the opposition in the German parliament (Bundestag); Thomas Martin, chief dramaturg of Berlin’s celebrated Volksbühne theater; Wolfgang Engler, president of the country’s preeminent theater school; Ivica Buljan, head of the Zagreb International Theatre Festival; and many others. Scholars and theater critics from the United States such as Jonathan Kalb (Hunter College, CUNY) also participated. In a particularly popular format called “table talks,” long-time collaborators and friends of the playwright, such as the actor Hermann Beyer and the director B. K. Tragelehn, immersed themselves in informal conversations with conference guests. 

Fifteen Bard students from the Berlin and Annandale campuses worked on different aspects of the conference, ranging from the preparation of publicity material to information technology and audio support, video documentation, catering, and much more.    

Jens Reich, a leader of the civil resistance to the East German regime and former candidate for president of Germany, who is also a molecular biologist and a member of the faculty and board of Bard College Berlin, led a discussion with Gregor Gysi and the eminent Germanist Jost Hermand (University of Wisconsin, Madison) on the future of left politics in Germany. In their conversation, Reich and Gysi recalled the experience of addressing, alongside Heiner Müller and just five days before the fall of the Wall, the largest demonstration East Berlin had ever seen.

David Levine, professor of art at Bard College Berlin and an OBIE Award–winning director and installation artist, spoke about his 2007 performance piece that drew on a character from one of Müller’s early plays to reflect on the work of the actor. Literary translator and Bard Vice President for Special Global Initiatives Susan H. Gillespie discussed her current work on Müller’s late poetry. 

The conference was organized by Florian Becker, associate professor of German at Bard College and director of Bard programs in Berlin, together with Janine Ludwig and Anja Quickert, his colleagues on the board of the International Heiner Müller Society. It was funded by a competitive grant from the German Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) and received supplementary support from several other cultural foundations and educational institutions, including Bard College Berlin.

View photos from the conference here.