Faith and Doubt

Questions of faith shape our world. Anyone who would like to believe that we live in secular times in which religion is a private matter must now experience in many ways how political conflicts and debates revolve around religious affiliation and the affiliation of certain religions to our society. This return of questions of confession to the public discourse of modernity compels us to take a stand. The Shakespearean stage, which has been asking such questions since the beginning of European modernism, can offer us a way to do this.

Shakespeare’s theater thrives on doubt, which is why it can deal with questions of faith all the more ambiguously. It was created in a time of upheaval such as the religious reorganization around 1600, but it offers heroes and conflicts that are all the more relevant to us today. How does religion relate to the world and what kind of worlds does it create? How can faith justify itself, prove itself or even change? And on what do members of other religions – in Shakespeare’s dramas, these are Turks or Jews, for example – base their faith?

From April 20 to 22, 2012, the German Shakespeare Society, in cooperation with the Schauspielhaus, the Ruhr University and the city of Bochum, invites you to discuss questions of this kind in lectures, workshops and performances. Founded in Weimar in 1864 and also closely associated with Bochum since the time of German division, the German Shakespeare Society is once again addressing a topical issue shortly before its 150th birthday.

Here you can download the flyer with the invitation, programme and registration and the president’s invitation letter.