The Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch 47

Summary

An annual volume, this time with special attention to the relevance of Brecht's work in today's world of resurgent authoritarianism and the need for resistance. The Brecht Yearbook is the central scholarly forum for discussion of Brecht's life and work and of topics of particular interest to him, especially the politics of literature and of theater in a global context. Embracing a wide variety of perspectives and approaches, like Brecht himself it is committed to the use value of literature, theater, and theory. Volume 47 features the special section Brecht Post-2020: Fascism and Misinformation, Resistance and Intersectionality, with articles on Fear and Misery of the Third Reich and today's surge in autocracy, on an adaptation of The Measures Taken and Brazil's right-wing turn, on Brecht's exile poetry as a model for truth in an era of fake news, and on the relevance of Brecht's late-1940s adaptations of plays about resistance, among others. Varied new research on Brecht follows: essays on the 1919 Spartacist uprising's influence on Drums in the Night, on the anti-Stalinist critique in the prologue to The Caucasian Chalk Circle, on a recent Korean production of the same play in traditional Changgeuk style, and on Mei Lanfang's performances in Moscow in 1935 that Brecht most likely attended. The final essay considers Brecht's unfinished exile poem Garden in progress and the inherent incompletion of artworks and historical processes.