Honors Workshop on March 30

Please join us this Thursday, March 30, 2023, between 4:00 pm and 5:30 pm for the Honors Workshop. On this occasion, we will have two great presentations. First, we will welcome Alex Trentham, who will present the paper “By This Axe I Rule: A Nietzschean Critique of Conan the Cimmerian,” then Rye Fournier will present the paper “‘Real’ Change Through Theatre: Milo Rau’s Congo Tribunal.”

The talk will be in person in Assiniboia Hall 2-02A.

The abstracts are here:

"By This Axe I Rule: A Nietzschean Critique of Conan the Cimmerian" – Alex Trentham
Author Robert E. Howard, long considered the grandfather of the sword and sorcery subgenre, was a prolific yet tragically short-lived writer. Out of all his created characters, one stands tall among the rest — Conan the Cimmerian. Stories featuring the titular barbarian depict him as a near unstoppable force of nature, an amoral hero who steals, carouses, and slays his way through life. Some have argued that themes in these stories share commonalities with, or even exemplify, a Nietzschean worldview. I intend to examine these claims and argue that Nietzschean concepts emerge throughout the texts, most notably ones that center on vitalism as well as slave and master morality.

Nonetheless, the presence of said elements is not indicative that Howard was attempting to articulate a Nietzschean worldview. On the contrary, I will argue that Howard, who praises the vitality of the past and decries the decadence of the present, strays intellectually close to the thought of one Richard Wagner. This overlap is interesting, as a young Nietzsche found Wagner captivating initially but began to turn against him as he got older. This growing animosity would culminate in a radical break with Wagner’s philosophy and denouncing him as decadent — a charge I will argue that Nietzsche would also level at Howard.

"'Real' Change Through Theatre: Milo Rau’s Congo Tribunal" – Rye Fournier
Milo Rau is a Swiss born theatre director who wrote in the first line of his manifesto for the National Theatre Ghent: “One: It's not just about portraying the world anymore. It's about changing it. The aim is not to depict the real, but to make the representation itself real.”

But what does “making the representation real” actually mean? And can theatre successfully “change the world”? To answer these questions, I am focusing on his piece The Congo Tribunal, which staged a mock tribunal that brought together locals, government officials, company representatives, and experts to review three cases from the civil conflict around mining in the DRC.