Aliena seeks to combine modern research work in Germanic Mediaeval literary and cultural studies with innovative approaches adopted in the teaching and mediating of literature. The research question of Aliena aims at methods and techniques of imaginative scenic production (theatricality, “Theatralität”) and related cultural potentials as created and communicated by mediaeval literature.

In co-operation with the Musisches Gymnasium Salzburg, these approaches and techniques should be creatively explored and developed. Wolfram von Eschenbach's courtly romance Parzival provides an ideal textual basis for such exploration. In the historical space of the Festung Hohensalzburg, selected passages of the romance will be staged in a dramatic production.

The combination of scientific research and its transfer to and mediation at school will help to newly accentuate the investigation into imaginative processes and effects of mediaeval literature in the context of an experiment based on the aesthetics of reception. Moreover, pupils will be offered access to historical texts and textual cultures and shall be made aware of the alterity of those texts and textual cultures by means of creative appropriation while being enabled to experience this alterity as negotiable. Ideally, the cultural “singularity” can be creatively fathomed and critically reflected with respect to its specific conditions and historical relativity.

The scientific topic shall be discussed in an international and interdisciplinary conference entitled “Imaginative Theatralität” (i.e. “Imaginative Theatricality”) and discussed in a didactic workshop in the second project year. The contributions to both events will be published and in the second project year the co-operation between school and university will be continued on a smaller scale in a further scenic project, e.g. about mediaeval love poetry.

This project has been completed.