In his lecture titled 'The University without Condition' (2002), Jacques Derrida puts forward the claim that the public university, and within it, the Humanities, must remain unconditional in their autonomy, free of any national, ideological or economic affiliations, able to profess, set free any thought. Rather than being understood as safeguarding a privilege or entitlement, this unconditionality is formulated as a pledge of responsibility, a status that is affirmed and maintained by a profession of faith. Derrida evokes in this essay three notions that are of central importance to the proposed book: the critical role of the Humanities in the organization of what he terms mondialisation or worldwide-ization; the performative, embodied nature of knowledge production, and the order of the 'as if', the training of the imagination to not only make sense of the present, but also to generate the ferment, from which knowledge that does not yet exist may emerge. This marks a characteristically theatrical perspective in as far as the objects of performance studies are critically tied to the lens through which these objects are constituted as performance. The mode of 'as if' shapes the inquiry in two directions: into new ways of thinking and knowing, and new things to think and know about. In the spirit of Derrida's plea of putting to work the unconditional sovereignty of the Humanities, the proposed volume focuses on the specific contribution of International Performance Research to knowledge production in the field. Concretely, this is addressed through essays reflecting on the experiences of a seven-year long collaborative pedagogical effort in the form of a joint international inter-university collaboration funded by the European Commission, namely, the Erasmus Mundus postgraduate programme in

The article discusses a non-event as evidence for history writing, as well as the role of historians as constructors of histories, especially those historians who have taken part in the events they are writing about. These historiographical questions are intertwined in a case study of the Finnish National Theatre's intended visit to Berlin in May 1943. Although the visit was carefully planned, it never happened, due to a change in the political situation between Finland and Germany during the Second World War. This journey, which never took place, and its absence in the history of the Finnish National Theatre, are an indication of the complex bonding between theatre, history and politics.

On 28 April 2013, ninety-five years after Finland's civil war (27 January–15 May 1918), artist Kaisa Salmi created a performance called Fellman Field: A Living Monument to 22,000 People. It was a site-specific event organized at Fellman Park in Lahti. There, for almost a week in 1918, thousands of civil war prisoners were held to await transport to a prison camp. In 2013, an impressive number of people (close to 10,000) gathered at this site to participate in a commemoration of the civil war, which is still one of the most repressed traumas in the national consciousness of the Finns. This article discusses Fellman Field as an artwork in terms of its utilization of embodied empathy: the sympathetic understanding of the other through physical and emotional experience. The case of Fellman Field demonstrates the challenges and successes of a site-specific participatory performance that aims to promote understanding and constructively handle the complexity of a national tragedy.

This article explores theatrical exchanges across the Baltic Sea in the 1930s as part of the cultural diplomacy of recently independent Finland. The Finnish National Theatre visited the Estonia Theatre in Tallinn in 1931 and in 1937, and the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in 1936. These theatre visits were different in terms of the visiting production. In Stockholm in 1936, and in Tallinn in 1937, the Finnish National Theatre showcased its work, while during the bilateral exchange with the Estonia Theatre in 1931, the main actors of two of the productions visited the other theatre and the audiences saw two hybrid performances of the two productions. Therefore, the visits are discussed in terms of international and transnational exchange.

During the Cold War, the Finnish National Theatre actively sought possibilities for international visits and co-operation. It wanted to showcase its work abroad and especially connect itself with Western European theatres. In 1956, the Finnish National Theatre visited Stockholm. In terms of politics, it was interesting that the Finnish National Theatre chose to perform Aleksis Kivi’s The Seven Brothers and especially interesting that it performed Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. It seems to be the case that there was a national border between the Finnish National Theatre and Anton Chekhov’s play that was hard to cross. The director of the production, Eino Kalima, was described as an expert in interpreting Chekhov due to his background as a student of Stanislavski. This was a myth created by the director of the Finnish National Theatre. However, it increased international interest for the production of The Three Sisters with Kalima as its director. Furthermore, it supported the theatre’s attempts at seeking mobility and engaging in international, cultural encounters.