Peter Weiss: Experiment und Engagement heute

In the essay, the volume’s editors trace the project that gave rise to this collection of contributions on Peter Weiss, his work, and his fortunes back to the events celebrating the centenary of his birth in 2016. The reflections start from Milo Rau, as an example of a contemporary author and director who finds in the mastery of Peter Weiss a point of reference for an art combining formal experimentalism with political engagement. The relevance of this present-day reference to Weiss as an example of the “aesthetics of resistance” is then addressed in detail, which leads on to the discussion of the main idea and thematic structure of the volume.