Major: Theater Studies at the University of Bergen

In the 2023–25 Academic Staffing Plan, the administration of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bergen proposes that two out of three academic positions in theater studies be eliminated during this period. A position that is currently vacant will not be filled, and the same applies to a retirement in 2024.

The Faculty Board’s proposal would be a major step toward the closure of the theater studies program at the University of Bergen. And it is impossible to imagine that the program, which offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees, could be maintained with only one remaining faculty position.

performing arts centre Kilden performing arts centre highly critical of this trend at the University of Bergen and in the performing arts field in general. Academic expertise in the field of theater and the performing arts has, unfortunately, become less widespread in recent years, despite the discipline’s importance to the development of the art form during this period. This trend is part of a series of threatened and implemented closures of theater studies programs at universities across the country, most recently on a trial basis at NTNU, but particularly with the closure of the program at the University of Oslo. A closure at UiB would, on a national level, put the entire discipline of theater studies at risk and, by extension, be detrimental to the performing arts field as a whole.

Author and theater professional Paal-Helge Haugen addressed the Norwegian Theater Directors’ Forum during their spring seminar at Kilden 2023 regarding the pressure facing theater studies as an academic discipline. Here he stated,among other things,that:“All artistic expressions need an academic intellectual counterpart that can engage in both research and criticism, in the broadest sense of the word. Without that, we wither away.”Haugen’s appeal fits right into the debate surrounding the closure at UiB, and Kilden behind the importance of the connection between artistic practice and academia.

The presence of more theater scholars has been crucial to strengthening the discipline and boosting the Norwegian theater field as a whole. A degree in theater studies provides a solid foundation for a professional career in theater and cultural life, while also reinforcing the legitimacy of theater in the country by maintaining and developing theater as an academic discipline.

performing arts centre Kilden performing arts centre the University of Bergen, and in particular the Faculty of Humanities, to fulfill its social mission with regard to the theater community in Norway by reinstating the two aforementioned positions, thereby continuing the work of preserving and further developing theater studies as an academic discipline.

Endre Sannes Hadland, dramaturg at Kilden

Photo: UiB