Contemporary Western social and cultural discourses are preoccupied with narratives of fear and anxiety. In contrast to the anxieties and fears that come with and are clearly linked to immediate dangers, for instance in times of religious persecution or civil war, in Western democracies fear has turned into – what we would describe as – ‘fear for fear’s sake’, whereby “being scared has become a culturally sanctioned affectation that pervades all aspects of life” (Furedi 1). The sociologist Frank Furedi even goes so far as to speak of a current “politics of fear,” which “exists as a force in its own right [...and] is the inevitable consequence of the prevailing mood of political exhaustion” (123). Consequently, one might even describe fear and anxiety today as approaches to reality and modes of perception that serve as perspectives in the processes of sense making (cf. 131). In this context, it is not surprising that there has been a significant increase in (popular) cultural production negotiating contexts, people, events, and situations that relate to these emotional states. Contemporary drama and performance have proven especially productive with regard to the negotiation of fear and anxiety, and, especially after the events of 11th September 2001, there has been a significant increase in the number of plays and productions that can be regarded as engaging in the politics of fear. To consider these phenomena as intellectual and cultural challenges and to investigate them in greater detail appeared timely, necessary even, and thus the annual conference of the German Society for Contemporary Drama in English, which took place at the University of Hildesheim from 31st May to 3rd June 2018, focused on fear and anxiety in contemporary drama and performance. Similar to Furedi, the feminist scholar Sara Ahmed also points to the political functions of emotions when she argues that “emotionality as a claim about a subject or a collective is clearly dependent on relations of power, which endow

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当代戏剧和表演中的恐惧和焦虑：导论

当代西方社会和文化话语全神贯注于恐惧和焦虑的叙述。与直接危险（例如在宗教迫害或内战时期）所伴随的并明显与直接危险相关的焦虑和恐惧相比，在西方民主国家，恐惧已经变成了——我们将其描述为——“为恐惧而恐惧”， “害怕已经成为一种文化认可的矫揉造作，渗透到生活的方方面面”（Furedi 1）。社会学家弗兰克·弗瑞迪 (Frank Furedi) 甚至谈到当前的“恐惧政治”，“它本身就作为一股力量存在 [......并且] 是普遍的政治疲惫情绪的必然结果”（123 ）。最后，今天，人们甚至可以将恐惧和焦虑描述为现实的方法和感知模式，作为意义构建过程中的视角（参见 131）。在这种情况下，与这些情绪状态相关的（流行的）文化产品谈判环境、人物、事件和情况显着增加也就不足为奇了。事实证明，当代戏剧和表演在解决恐惧和焦虑方面特别有效，尤其是在 2001 年 9 月 11 日事件之后，可被视为参与恐惧和焦虑的戏剧和作品的数量显着增加。恐惧政治。将这些现象视为智力和文化挑战并更详细地研究它们似乎是及时的，甚至是必要的，因此，德国当代英语戏剧协会的年度会议于 2018 年 5 月 31 日至 6 月 3 日在希尔德斯海姆大学举行，重点关注当代戏剧和表演中的恐惧和焦虑。与富雷迪类似，女权主义学者萨拉·艾哈迈德 (Sara Ahmed) 也指出了情感的政治功能，她认为“作为对主体或集体的主张的情感显然依赖于权力关系，权力关系赋予