UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Ambivalence of Resistance: West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2c73n9k4 Author Boyle, Michael Shane Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Ambivalence of Resistance West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence By Michael Shane Boyle A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair Professor Anton Kaes Professor Shannon Steen Fall 2012 The Ambivalence of Resistance West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence © Michael Shane Boyle All Rights Reserved, 2012 Abstract The Ambivalence of Resistance West German Antiauthoritarian Performance After the Age of Affluence by Michael Shane Boyle Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair While much humanities scholarship focuses on the consequence of late capitalism’s cultural logic for artistic production and cultural consumption, this dissertation asks us to consider how the restructuring of capital accumulation in the postwar period similarly shaped activist practices in West Germany. From within the fields of theater and performance studies, “The Ambivalence of Resistance: West German Antiauthoritarian Performance after the Age of Affluence” approaches this question historically. It surveys the types of performance that decolonization and New Left movements in 1960s West Germany used to engage reconfigurations in the global labor process and the emergence of anti-imperialist struggles internationally, from documentary drama and happenings to direct action tactics like street blockades and building occupations. The critical lens of performance allows me to examine what I call the antiauthoritarian structure of feeling: the felt sentiment of German New Left activists who prized the experience of political struggle for its potential to undo the authoritarian personality they believed themselves to have internalized as a result of growing up in Nazi and postwar West Germany. My study looks to the antiauthoritarian structure of feeling for what it can reveal about the world historical shift to late capitalism, by asking us to interrogate the dually defiant yet symptomatic character of activist practices in the postwar period. This requires examining the antiauthoritarian structure of feeling as not just critically resistant to historical conditions of the time, but also conditioned through them. How might we analyze German New Left critiques of high modernist culture and existing forms of worker organization as legitimating the postmodern and neoliberal restructuring of culture and labor? What does this suggest about the New Left’s role in the reconfiguration of the labor process during the 1960s and 1970s? And in what ways did the antiauthoritarian structure of feeling anticipate the psychic habitus of late capitalism? Among the artists and activist groups studied include: Gruppe SPUR, Subversive Aktion, Kommune 1, Viva Maria!, Hans Werner Henze, Peter Weiss, Peter Stein, the SDS, and the Kultur und Revolution. 1 To Morgan and Syd (in no particular order) i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii List of Abbreviations v Introduction 1 Antiauthoritarian Structures of Feeling: Activist Experience and the Political Unconscious of Performance Studies Chapter One 28 Affluence for All! Situationism and Subversion in the Wirtschaftswunder Chapter Two 59 Anti-Fascism, Decolonization, and the Antiauthoritarian Personality Chapter Three 97 Trying the Courts: Performative Antiauthoritarianism and the Criminalization of Dissent Chapter Four 123 The End(s) of Art in New Left Aesthetics Chapter Five 169 The Long March through the Theaters Viet Nam Diskurs and the Alibi of Resistance Bibliography 195 ii Acknowledgments Perhaps it goes without saying, but this dissertation was written under circumstances not of its own choosing—that these circumstances included the meltdown of the world economy only amplifies my appreciation for those who provided such generous support for this project. My archival research in Germany and the Netherlands was funded by a Fulbright grant from the International Institute for Education as well as an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Sciences Research Council. I wish to also thank the Graduate Division, the Arts Research Council, the Department of German, and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies for providing the care and support that now allows me to depart UC Berkeley relatively unscathed and free of debt. The kind-heartedness of the support staff at the above organizations and institutions has been astonishing. Special thanks to Robin Davidson and Mary Ajideh. Any moments of particular clarity or nuance in this project are a direct result of the mentorship of my outstanding chair Shannon Jackson. She has been a most discerning reader and an emboldening advocate of this project. For this, I owe her great thanks. The day I set foot in Tony Kaes’ classroom, my life as a graduate student fell into place. It was there that I found this project as well as a mentor and theater companion whose generosity and wit is without equal. If this project can claim any sense of historical perspective, it is certainly because of him. Shannon Steen’s constant reassurance and intellectual energy have been an invaluable presence since my first seminar with her my very first day at UC Berkeley. I thank her for her candor, but most of all for her trust in my abilities as both a scholar and infrequent caretaker of her toddler and cat. At UC Berkeley, I have had the enviable opportunity to work with magnificent faculty. Catherine Cole and Peter Glazer have demonstrated to me time and again how scholarship need not proceed absent of art or politics. I thank Alexei Yurchak, Donald Moore, and Deniz Göktürk for pushing me down paths I would never have got to on my own. And though I never had the chance to take a class with Lyn Hejinian, from her and the other members of the Solidarity Alliance I have learned so much. My time in Germany was made all the easier thanks to the kindness of Yvonne Hardt and Erika Fischer-Lichte, not to mention the many archivists who helped me find my way at the International Institute for Social History, the Akademie der Künste, the Deutsche Kinemathek, and the Landesarchiv Berlin. Special thanks to Ulrike Groß and her dog Blue at the APO-Archiv. It would be impossible to articulate here my love and respect for my friends and comrades throughout California and Germany. For the political passion and tactical foresight of those in the Bay Area, I have been so very thankful on so many occasions: iii Jessica Smith, Larry Bogad, Matt Bonal, Amanda Armstrong, Jessica Taal, Mandy Cohen, Adam Hefty, Sara Smith, Katy Fox-Hodess, Jessie Hock, Alex Dubilet, Kfir Cohen, Beezer de Martelly, Ari Powers, Callie Maidhof, Zachary Levenson, Chris Chen, Jasper Bernes, Tim Kreiner, Jill Richards, and Joshua Clover. Thank you to Ashley Ferro-Murray, Caitlin Marshall, Sima Belmar, Kate Duffly, and the rest of the graduate students in performance studies for making Dwinelle Annex the most welcoming place on UC property no matter the circumstances. Chris Schlegel, Justine Chaney, Dominic Raths, Paola Adami, Dennis Johanßen, Katrin Beushausen, Paul Flaig, Jack and Claire Davis, Rob Madole, and Matt Cornish made Berlin an extremely warm place to live and work even on the coldest of days. Thank you to Brandon Woolf, the best of friends and conspirators. Scott Brandos and Matt Udink, I owe you sincere gratitude for years of friendship. And Brandon Chalk, thank you for the bourbon and so much more. My deepest thanks are reserved for my parents Mike and Pam, my sister Stacey, my brother-in-law Louis, my nephews Christian, Brayden, and Gannon, and my niece Amanda. Much love to Carole and Joe Wadsworth for their compassion and care. And finally, to Morgan, my beloved companion on every step of this long march through the dissertation, thank you for everything—especially Syd. iv List of Abbreviations AdK-HB Akademie der Künste, Harry Buckwitz Archive AdK-PW Akademie der Künste, Peter Weiss Archive APO Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (Außerparlamentarische Opposition) APO-A Archive of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition, FU Berlin (Archiv “APO und soziale Bewegungen” Freie Universität Berlin) AStA-FU General Student Council of the Free University Berlin (Allgemeiner Studentenausschuss) CDU/CSU Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (Christlich Demokratische Union/Christlich-Soziale Union) FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) FU Free University Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) KfA Campaign for Disarmament (Kampagne für Abrüstung) NDR North German Broadcasting (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) NLF South Vietnamese National Liberation Front RAF Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion) SAVAK Iranian National Intelligence and Security Organization SDS German Socialist Students League (Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund) SPD German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) TU Technical University (Technische Universität)