Even voorstellen: keynotespreker Marguérite Corporaal (CFH2025)

Op donderdagmiddag 13 november is prof. dr. Marguérite Corporaal uitgenodigd als keynotespreker. Marguérite Corporaal groeide op in Franeker (Frjentsjer) en is hoogleraar Ierse literatuur in transnationale contexten aan de Radboud Universiteit in Nederland. Ze was hoofdonderzoeker van Relocated Remembrance: The Great Famine in Irish (Diaspora) Fiction, 1847–1921, waarvoor ze een Starting Grant for Consolidators ontving van de Europese Onderzoeksraad (2010–15).

Corporaal ontving een NWO-VICI-subsidie voor haar project Redefining the Region (2019-24), dat de transnationale dimensies van lokale kleur tijdens de lange negentiende eeuw onderzoekt. Daarnaast is Corporaal hoofdonderzoeker van Heritages of Hunger, dat wordt gefinancierd als onderdeel van het NWA-programma van de Nederlandse Onderzoeksraad NWO (2019-24). Van 2016 tot 2019 leidde ze het Gate Theatre Research Network, gefinancierd door NWO, in samenwerking met de Charles University Prague en de Universiteit van Galway in Ierland.

Lezing

De titel van Corporaals lezing is 'The Frisian Tryater and the Dublin Gate: Cosmopolitan Theatres, Minority Languages and Identity Construction'.

The Frisian Tryater and the Dublin Gate: Cosmopolitan Theatres, Minority Languages and Identity Construction

The Dublin Gate Theatre, founded in 1928, has been acknowledged as a cosmopolitan theatre that simultaneously helped to construct and cement Irish identities, as well as promote the use of Irish. Scholarship by, amongst others, Ruud van den Beuken, David Clare and Nicola Morris has demonstrated that from the start the Gate engaged with international poetics, repertoire and dramaturgy and targeted international audiences. Theatres elsewhere in Europe play(ed) similar roles in combining international repertoire with plays which staged national or regional pasts or issues. One such theatre which, like the Gate, furthermore invested in emancipating marginal identities and promoting a minority language is the Frisian Tryater.

Officially established in 1965 in Leeuwarden— cultural capital of Europe in 2018— Tryater has played a prominent role in shaping regional identities through engagements with international repertoire as well as in providing a platform to plays in the Frisian language, following the so-called “kneppelfreed” campaign (1951) which stimulated Frisian as a cultural language.

The history of this Frisian theatre group goes back to the foundation of the Fryske Toanielstifting in 1965, which acquired the name Tryater in 1969. Tryater became highly successful in the 1970s under the leadership of Pyt van der Zee, and in 1985, when Thom van der Goot was artistic director, the theatre attained national recognition. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Tryater would stage over 500 performances per year, in Frisian and other languages, at its main venue in Leeuwarden, local venues and schools in Friesland as well as abroad.

This keynote will discuss Tryater in comparison to the Dublin Gate Theatre in three respects: their language politics, their adaptations of international plays, and their staging of marginalised identities. Since their early histories, the Gate and Tryater have shared a concern with the promotion of indigenous languages which was moreover combined with a cosmopolitan outlook. Both theatres would bring translations of internationally renowned drama into an indigenous, minority language to the stage. Just like Tryater, which from the onset gave a stage to new, local playwrights, the Gate significantly furthered the careers of a hitherto unknown generation of dramatists such as Denis Johnston, Davis Sears, Robert Collis and Mary Manning. Furthermore, both in the past and present, The Gate and Tryater have produced original plays which subvert issues of identity formation in contexts of globalisation. Examples are Nancy Harris’s The Red Shoes (2018) and Hummus & Haring’s community art project Eritreatown (2018).

Meer over Corporaal en de lezing is te vinden op de sprekerspagina van de congreswebsite.

In het kort

Wat: Conference on Frisian Humanities
Waar: Oranje Hotel, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden 
Wanneer: 12-14 november 2025 
Organisatie: Fryske Akademy, Mercator Europees Kenniscentrum voor Meertaligheid en Taalleren, het Lectoraat Meertaligheid en Geletterdheid van de NHL Stenden Hogeschool, de afdeling Frisian Studies van de Universiteit Groningen en de afdeling Language, Technology and Culture van UG/Campus Fryslân. 
Volledige programma: download (pdf) 
Book of Abstracts: download (pdf) 
Registratie: via de website.