ArteActa 2020, 4:27-40 | DOI: 10.62804/aa.2020.002

The Institution of Class and Collective. Remarks on Fatzer and The Measures Taken

Michael Wehren

This article focuses on the re-entry and re-framing of the questions of class and classism in the context of contemporary discussions about intersectionality and the works of Bertolt Brecht. Starting with the observation that since the 1990s traditional Marxist categories like class have been less prominent in art and academic discourse than more contemporary concepts like "the political," I argue that a renewed understanding of class and classism is productive also in the context of Brecht studies. After discussing selected approaches to the concepts of class and classism, the article focuses on the processes of the political as well aesthetic institution of class in Brecht's learning play The Measures Taken. In an analysis of a paradigmatic choir scene, I demonstrate that the exposed repetition of the process of class formation or the institution of class can be seen as a critical intervention and a re-association with that which has been rejected in and by it in the name of the collective.

Keywords: Bertolt Brecht, The Measures Taken, Fatzer, Threepenny Opera, Class, Classism, Institution, Politics of affect, Politics of vulnerability, Intersectionality, Learning plays

Published: December 15, 2020  Show citation

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Wehren, M. (2020). The Institution of Class and Collective. Remarks on Fatzer and The Measures Taken. ArteActa, 3(4), 27-40. doi: 10.62804/aa.2020.002
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