Anthea Ziermann, M.A.

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

Promotionsprojekt

Negotiating the Occult on the Early Modern English Stage

Theatre has often been described as an experimental space, a laboratory. In this capacity, the Early Modern English stage participates in  contemporary discourses, serving as a practice lens which is used to dissect and reassemble prevalent institutional dynamics, social practices, and competing truth claims.
Occult discourse, consisting of folklore traditions, academic writings, religious doctrines, pseudo-scientific argumentation, opinion management campaigns and other orally or textually circulated information, is a popular and recurring element in stage plays. Due to the epistemic and ontological uncertainty created by occult practices shown on stage as well as the ongoing negotiation and redefinition of what the term ‚occult‘ does and does not include, magic serves as an especially productive and rewarding subject matter.
This project traces the ways in which occult truth claims in the form of explicit statements as well as implicit biases, prejudices, and superstitions are deconstructed, critically represented, and negotiated on the Early Modern English stage. This includes claims about the nature, origin, and accessibility of occult powers, practices, and knowledge as well as information or claims about the (play) world which are generated, expressed or supported via occult means.
Methodically, this study involves re-thinking the role and possibilites of social practice theory in the context of the ’nexus‘ (Theodore Schatzki) of early modern theatrical practices. Theatre not only served as a gathering space, source of entertainment and mass medium. Being a young institution, it also actively took part in the ‚circulation of social energies‘ (Stephen Greenblatt).
Developing my approach on this foundation, I will examine the ability of occult discourses to offer insights into a culture’s boundaries, anxieties, and dynamics of personal and national identity construction. Moreover, this study will highlight early modern theatre’s function as an analytical space within wider discourses and the unique potential of the stage as a synaesthetic laboratory space in which practices, claims and material arrangements can be made negotiable.

Vita

Seit 12/2024: Kollegiatin im GRK 2945 „Wissen – Glauben – Behaupten. Wahrheitsproduktion und Wahrheitsdurchsetzung in der Vormoderne“ an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Seit 10/2024: Promotionsstudium in der Anglistik an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum

09/2022-03/2023: Studentische Lehrbeauftragte am Institut für Theaterwissenschaft [Titel: Am Rande des Abgrunds – Shakespeares problematische Komödien] an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum

10/2020-09/2024: Bachelorstudium in den Fächern Anglistik und Philosophie

10/2020-09/2023: Masterstudium in der Theaterwissenschaft an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum

10/2017-09/2020: Bachelorstudium in den Fächern Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft und Theaterwissenschaft an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Publikationen

Aufsätze

„[A]ught that man may question“. Der Hexendiskurs im frühneuzeitlichen England als Aushandlungsort von Wahrheitsansprüchen, in: Laura Frölich / Antonia Heimüller / Marco Keriakos / Karen Wahlers (Hgg.): Making Truth. Spannungsfelder, Strategien und Figuren der Wahrheitsproduktion in der Vormoderne. Beiträge zur Studierendentagung in Bochum vom 18.–20. Oktober 2023, Bochum 2025, S. 178–198.

Blogbeiträge

„But may I raise up spirits when I please?“. The Precariousness of Performing Magic on the Early Modern English Stage, in: KWI-BLOG, [https://blog.kulturwissenschaften.de/but-may-i-raise-up-spiritis/], 12.05.2026, DOI: https://doi.org/10.37189/kwi-blog/20260512-0830.

Rezensionen

Rezension von: Samantha Dressel, Matthew Carter (Hrsg.): Boundaries of Violence in Early Modern
England, Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2024, in: Shakespeare-Jahrbuch 162, Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 2026, S. 270-272.