Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada

May 2024 — April 2025

Staging Diversity: Negotiating Post-National Identities in Berlin Theatre

During her time as a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dahlem Humanities Center, Christine is working on a project titled, "Staging Diversity: Negotiating Post-National Identities in Berlin Theatre." Her research examines how Berlin's leading theatre institutions (i.e. the Volksbühne, the Maxim Gorki Theater and the Schaubühne) are responding to pressures to diversify, reimagining the national theater tradition and reframing the dramatic canon. The project compares the approaches that these institutions animate in reframing German identity and explores the tensions that surround the processes of transformation. The research is generously supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).  

Christine is a faculty member at NYU Berlin, teaching courses in German theatre, cinema and cultural studies. Her research interests include contemporary and 20th century German theatre, ethnic Germans in Russia, and the German punk and new wave music scenes. Christine is currently completing her first book manuscript: a comprehensive history of the Frank Castorf era Volksbühne. She has recently published an article on the post-Wende Volksbühne as speculative utopias in the edited collection, Postsocialist Memory in Contemporary German Culture (DeGruyter, 2024). Christine also co-edited a special issue on German theatre for the journal Seminar (UofT Press, 2024). Outside of academia, Christine has had the opportunity to perform under the auspices of Norwegian-German theatre duo Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller.