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Maribor Theatre Festival — Archive 2010 - 2016

Ivan Medenica

Ivan Medenica

Ivan Medenica is theatre critic, editor, scientific researcher, and lecturer. He simultaneously studied Philosophy at the Faculty for Philosophy and Dramaturgy at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where he graduated from Dramaturgy in 1995 and is now the Chief of the Department for Theory and History. He regularly publishes articles in the Collected Research Papers of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, in the national theatre periodicals (Scena and Teatron) and in foreign periodicals. He has participated in a number of conferences abroad.For fourteen years he had been a drama critic for the daily Politika and weekly Vreme, and for some time he has been a theatre critic for the weekly NIN. He has received the National Award for the theatre criticism - the Sterija Award - four times, in 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2008 and the award "Zlatno pero" in 2008. Since October 2001, he has been editing, together with Ksenija Radulovic, the theatre periodical Teatron, which is published by the Serbian Museum of Theatre Arts. In the period 2003-2007, Medenica was the Artistic Director of Sterijino pozorje festival in Novi Sad.

Ivan Medenica’s paper "’Intercritic’ without Conflict of Interest" problematizes the ethical and professional aspects within the notion of inter-criticism. Does the activity of an inter-critic outside the framework of his vocation truly jeopardize his professional distance and objectivity? Is "conflict of interests" an adequate concept to encapsulate this situation? Do the notions of ethics and guilt suffice for an adequate definition of  inter-criticism? The author also asks a provocative question: Is it possible to acknowledge intercriticism as a new form of critical practice,  while at the same time providing  grounds for the conclusion that parallel activities in most cases do not jeopardize the traditionally understood ethical norms of critical work? The intercritic is not in a conflict of interest.