Cryptotheology, Psychobiography: Transgression in Polish 20th-Century Theatre

Tamara Trojanowska gave a lecture on “Cryptotheology, Psychobiography: Transgression in Polish 20th-Century Theatre” on Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the Lecture: Tamara Trojanowska will present on her current research, which focuses on the intersections of 20th and 21st-century drama and theatre with history and religious thought, highlighting identity, subversion, and transgression issues. Her latest research project, co-edited with Joanna Niżyńska and Przemysław Czapliński and entitled A History of Polish Literature and Culture: New Perspectives on 20th and 21st Centuries, includes her extensive analysis of the transgressive practices in Polish drama and theatre (“Delectatio furiosa, or the modes of cultural transgression”) among over sixty essays by colleagues from all over the world. She has also contributed a chapter on this subject to Theatermachine: Tadeusz Kantor in Context (eds. Magda Romanska and Cathleen Cioffi, 2020), with her investigations of the dramatic and the sacred resulting in a new selection of and an extensive introduction to the plays of Roman Brandstaetter (Dzień gniewu. Dramaty, 2016). About the Lecturer: A graduate of the Drama Centre at the University of Toronto (Ph.D.) and of Theatre Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (MA), Tamara Trojanowska has also formerly held an Oxford University scholarship and an internship at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She has taught at universities in Poland, Canada, and the United States, returning to the University of Toronto as a faculty member in 1998. Since then, she has directed the Polish Language and Literature Program at the Slavic Department, strengthening its profile and presence in North America, the University College Drama Program (2008-2012), and the Center for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (2017-2021). She now serves as Vice-Dean Faculty and Academic Life in the Faculty of Arts and Science.