Alexandra Portmann studied philosophy and theatre studies at the University of Bern and completed further training in cultural management (CAS, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland). She has worked as a theatre and cultural studies scholar at universities in Switzerland and abroad (including the University of Kent in 2012). Her dissertation "The time is out of joint - Shakespeare's Hamlet in the countries of the former Yugoslavia" deals with the interrelationship between the politics of memory and theatre and was awarded both the Faculty Prize of the University of Bern and the Martin Lehnert Prize of the German Shakespeare Society. Her doctorate (2015) was followed by several years of teaching and research residency in the UK (Queen Mary, University of London 2017) and Germany (University of Cologne 2015-2017, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2018). From 2019-2023, she lead the SNF Ambizione project "Festivals and Institutional Change: Perspectives on transnational working methods in contemporary theatre" and since August 2020 she is the Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies with the focus on contemporary theatre. In addition to her academic work, she has repeatedly worked as a dramaturge and project manager in the independent theatre scene.
Her research interests include contemporary theatre and performance art, institutional change and criticism in the contemporary arts, (theatre) historiography, cultural politics and economics, theatre production in the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Shakespeare.
