Peter W. Marx

Peter W. Marx (born 1973 in Limburg an der Lahn) is a German Theatre and Performance Studies Scholar. He holds the Chair of Theatre and Media Studies at the University of Cologne where he functions also the director of its Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung. Marx is recognized for his research on metropolitan culture at the beginning of the 20th century as well as on Max Reinhardt with an emphasis on Cultural Studies. In addition, his work focuses on contemporary theatre and Shakespeare in performance, particularly on “Hamlet“ as a figure of cultural mobility.

At the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Marx received his PhD with a dissertation entitled “Theater And Cultural Memory” discussing works of George Tabori, Tadeusz Kantor and Rina Yerushalmi. The study was awarded with the Research-Funding-Award 2002 of the Friends of the University of Mainz. In the year 2003 Marx was appointed Junior-Professor for Theater Studies with a focus on Cultural Studies at the University of Mainz. With the completion of a research project for the Feodor-Lynen-Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he became a visiting scholar at the Columbia University in New York City for three expanded research stays between 2004 and 2006. He held various visiting professorships at the universities of Hildesheim, Vienna and the Free University of Berlin between 2007-2009. (References) From 2009 to 2012 Marx was an associate professor at the University of Bern. In February 2012 he was appointed Professor of Theater and Media Studies at the University of Cologne and director of the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung. Since April 2012 he is also head of the Department of Media Culture and Theatre.

Marx is a member of these societies: Member of the International Federation for Theatre Research (FIRT/IFTR), Working Group “Theater Historiography“ of the Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaft Germany, Executive Editor of “Forum Modernes Theater”, Member of the Board of the Ismar Elbogen Network for Jewish Cultural History, Member of the Editorial Board of Multicultural Shakespeare

• Theater History (emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries)
• Techniques of Imagination
• Cultural Studies
• Popular Culture and Media Studies (the staging of foreignness in films and TV series)
• Intercultural Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Shakespeare and His Theater, Shakespeare-Reception in Germany

• "Hamlet’s Journey to Germany. A Cultural History of the Collective Imaginary” (book; expected completion 2013)
• as editor: “Metzler-Handbuch: Hamlet” (forthcoming 2013; Metzler Verlag)
• Subproject „The Stage as Scena Mundi: Narration, Performance and Imagination“ in the framework of the Sinergeia-Research Network "The Interior: Art, Space, and Performance (Early Modern to Postmodern)“, overall direction Prof. Dr. Christine Göttler, founded by the Swiss National Fund (University of Berne and University of Cologne, ongoing since 2012)
• Research Project “Hamlet’s Odyssey – A Study on the Phenomenon of Cultural Mobility”, sponsored by the Swiss National Fund (University of Bern, ongoing since 2011)
• Authorization of a Marie-Curie-Fellowship for Dr. Katharina Wessely with the project „The Theatrical Landscape of Bohemia and Moraivia as a Space of Negotiating Cultural Identities (TheatLandIdent)“, sponsored by the Research Executive Agency of the EU (University of Bern, ongoing since 2011)
• Doctoral workshop course “Cultural Mobility”, sponsored by the non-professional faculty of the University of Berne (University of Bern, 2011)
• Grant for printing costs for the volume “Berlin on the Way to Becoming the Theater Capital. Theater Pamphlets between 1869-1914” (co-edited by Stefanie Watzka) by the Bank of Prussia (2008)
• “Mainstreaming the Minorities? The Representation of Ethnicity and its Function in Popular-Cultural Media in the German-US-American Comparison.” (together with Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee), sponsored by the Johannes-Gutenberg-University Center for Intercultural Studies in Mainz (2003-2004)

• “Heiner Müller: Image Description. An Analysis from the Perspective of Greimas’ Semiotics”, Frankfurt am Main and others: Peter Lang, 1998.
• “Theater and Cultural Memory. Cultural Semiotic Research on George Tabori, Tadeusz Kantor and Rina Yerushalmi”, Tübingen: Francke, 2003.
• “Max Reinhardt. From Bourgeois Theater to Metropolitan Culture”, Tübingen: Francke, 2006.
• “A Theatrical Age. Bourgeois Self-Staging around 1900”, Tübingen: Francke, 2008.
• With Stefanie Watzka (ed.) “Berlin on the Way to Becoming the Theater Capital. Theater Pamphlets between 1869 and 1914”, Tübingen: Francke, 2009.
• (ed.) “Handbook Drama. Theory, Analysis, History”, Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2012.