Loren Kruger's studies have focused on literature, theatre, and performing arts in various languages includingAfrikaans,French,German,Spanish, andZulu. She joined theUniversity of Chicago in 1986. Before she departed in 2024, she held appointments in comparative literature, English, and theatre and performance studies, as well as affiliations in cinema and media studies, African studies and urban studies.[1] She was the editor ofTheatre Journal from 1996 to 1999 and contributing editor ofTheatre Research International in 2002 and 2003. She is an active member of theInternational Federation for Theatre Research and the International Brecht Society.
"On the Tragedy of the Commoner," an article on adaptations of classicaltragedy byanti-apartheid andpost-apartheid South African stages, won the Philadelphia Constantinidis Prize from the Comparative Drama Association.[3][4]
Kruger's first book,The National Stage: Theatre and Cultural Legitimation in England, France, and America, was published by theUniversity of Chicago Press in 1992. It examines the role of theatre institutions in the creation of national publics, and describes national theaters in Central Europe that helped to facilitate the establishment of nation states.[5][6] In 2004,Cambridge University Press published her book,Post-Imperial Brecht: Politics and Performance, South and East, which discussesBertolt Brecht, links between theGlobal South and theSoviet empire, andCold War-era imperialism.[7] It won the Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Study from theModern Language Association.[8][9][10][11] In 2013, Kruger's book examining theapartheid history, turbulent culture, odd-shaped districts ofJohannesburg was published byOxford University Press,Imagining the Edgy City: Writing, Performing and Building Johannesburg. The termedgy city describes both the physical geography of speculative urban development and the nervousness of citizens amid urban turbulence.[12][13][14][15]
Kruger's books and articles on theatre in South Africa,The Drama of South Africa (1999), and the updatedCentury of South African Theatre (2019),[16][17][18] are considered the most historically comprehensive study of this topic.[19]
Beyond theInternationale: Revolutionary Writing byEugene Pottier,[20] a selection of songs, speeches and On the Tragedy of the Commoner," by the author ofL'Internationale, also includes translations of adaptions ofL'Internationale, his most famous song, in languages from Afrikaans to Zulu, via German, Spanish, and Yiddish among others,
the translation and edition of German and English manuscripts of the autobiography ofLeontine Sagan, the director of the filmMädchen in Uniform.[21][22] published asLights and Shadows: the Autobiography of Leontine Sagan by Wits University Press in Johannesburg.
The Institutions of Art, essays by the literary historians Peter Bürger and Christa Bürger, translated from German and published by the University of Nebraska Press
Theatre and the Crossroads of Culture byPatrice Pavis, translated from French and published by Routledge Press.
Lights and Shadows: the Autobiography ofLeontine Sagan. Edited from Sagan's English and German manuscripts with an introduction by Loren Kruger. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1996
^National Theatre in Northern and Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press. 1991.
^Kruger, Loren (2008). Wilmer, S.E. (ed.).National Theatres in a Changing Europe: "The National Stage and the Nationalized House in Modern Europe. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 34–48.ISBN9780230521094.
^Horn, Peter. "Post-Imperial Brecht by Loren Kruger".Monatshefte.95 (2):312–313.
^Sagan, Leontime (1996). Kruger, Loren (ed.).Lights and Shadows: The Autobiography of Leontine Sagan. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. pp. vii–viii.ISBN9781868142880.
^Sagan, Leontine (2010). Eckhardt, Michael (ed.).Leontine Sagan, Licht und Schatten. Schauspielerin und Regisseurin auf vier Kontinenten [Lights and Shadows: The Autobiography of Leontine Sagan – the title of the original English-language edition by Loren Kruger] (in German). Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich.ISBN978-3-941450-12-7.
