In the Thicket of Capitalism – Saint Joan of the Stockyards Today

On the occasion of the Ljubljana premiere (and subsequent performances) of the international co-production Saint Joan of the Stockyards, to be held on 10 and 11 November 2024 in Cankarjev dom’s Linhart Hall, CD Humanities Programme and the Založba /*cf. publishing house (which published Brecht's play in the Slovenian translation by Mojca Kranjc) are organising an accompanying discursive event: an expert colloquium titled In the Thicket of Capitalism – Saint Joan of the Stockyards Today.

The starting point for the colloquium is the play Saint Joan of the Stockyards by German playwright and theoretician Bertolt Brecht, one of the most prominent figures of twentieth-century theatre. Bertolt Brecht wrote the first version of the play in 1929, after the great collapse of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 and the resulting financial crash. 

Using the example of the North American meat-packing industry, Brecht unveiled the speculations of stock market investors who deliberately create surpluses or shortages, thereby influencing fluctuations in commodity prices, encouraging or discouraging production and, as a result, the cost of labour, level of unemployment and poverty rate. 

Another important dimension of Brecht's play is the introduction of the Church, represented by Joan, a member of a religious sect and the author’s version of the Maid of Orleans motif. Brecht's Joan performs the role of a mediator between capitalists and workers in order to restart the investment cycle, which alone can (at least temporarily) pull capitalism out of its quagmire.

The colloquium aims to approach Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards from several perspectives: from the literary-aesthetic, literary-historical and literary-theoretical to the theatrical and the performative; it also seeks to encourage a sociological reading of the play: reflections on its social, politico-economic implications, its scathing critique of the capitalist system, the bourgeois ideology and the ecclesiastical institution. This is the first time that Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards is the focus of an international symposium.

The symposium has been devised as a discursive event that complements, enhances and enables a wide range of reflections on, experiences of and insights into Saint Joan of the Stockyards.