Multilingualism:

• Creative multilingualism: exploring its creative power and strategies, particularly in performative and literary contexts
• Glossodiversity: opportunities and challenges in terms of diversity and access
• Didactic approaches to supporting learner engagement with multilingual texts and performances

Literature and Theatre in intercultural and international contexts, including the projects

• Theatre and Internationalization (CI, UA/ DAAD -funded, with the CCT, Leipzig University)
• Multilingualism on the Berlin stage
• Contemporary multilingual novels in German
• Theatre of Real People: ‘Real People’ and the use of Authenticity Effects and Productive Insecurity in intercultural contexts
• Post-war cabaret by the Little Viennese Theatre (Kleines Wiener Theater)
• The Australian reception of B. Brecht’s work

Ulrike Garde’s research interests range across Intercultural German Studies, in particular German theatre, performing arts and literature with a particular interest in how they create and and destabilize our perceptions of cultural identities. Her current project investigates 'Multilingualism on the Berlin Stage' with her most recent article published in Contemporary Theatre Review. In a joint project with the Centre of Competence for Theatre (Leipzig University), she also investigates artistic practices, institutional frameworks and transitional stages as part of a Universities Australia / DAAD -funded project focusing on Australian and German Theatre in International and Intercultural Contexts.

Her research has contributed new insights into Australian-German cross-cultural relationships and into the Arts’ engagement with cultural diversity in German-speaking countries and beyond.

Key publications include:

- Bertolt Brecht and the reception of German-speaking playwrights in Australia (Brecht & Co: German-speaking Playwrights on the Australian Stage);

- Theatre of Real People (with M. Mumford) offering fresh perspectives on our current fascination with ‘Real People’ and authenticity. It  explores how innovative documentary theatre, such as by Rimini Protokoll, has created a sense of the real and authentic, asking whether this aesthetic strategy contributes fresh ways of perceiving culturally diverse and unfamiliar people.

- The volume Theatre and Internationalization (co-edited with J.R. Severn),  published with Routledge in 2021.

Supervision Areas

• Contemporary literature, film and theatre by German-speaking authors, directors and theatre artists
• Creative multilingualism
• Theatre and internationalisation
• Staging Migration in theatre, performance and film
• Intercultural reception studies and histories
• Learning and teaching of German language, literature and culture