Curriculum vitae
doc. PhDr. Elena Knopová, PhD.
Assoc. Prof. PhDr. Elena Knopová, PhD. (1981) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Theatre and Film Research of the Art Research Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and a lecturer at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia.She graduated in Theatre Studies from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica and in Mass Media Communication from the Faculty of Mass Media Communication at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. She completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Theatre and Film Research of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, which served as an external educational institution of the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where she was also awarded her habilitation (Associate Professorship) in 2020.
Her research focuses on contemporary European theatre and drama, with particular emphasis on the dramaturgy of themes, transformations of value-based theatrical discourse, the post-Brechtian tradition of political theatre, as well as issues of subcultural, community, and socially engaged theatre.
She publishes regularly in Slovakia and abroad and lectures at national and international universities and scholarly conferences. Since 2018, she has been the founder, scientific guarantor, and organizer of the International Banská Bystrica Conference on Theatre Studies, while also co-organizing several other national academic conference platforms. In addition, she is actively involved in non-formal education, particularly in the field of young theatre criticism.
She has extensive experience in national and international research projects, serving both as a principal investigator and as a member of research teams. Her projects have been funded through schemes such as VEGA, KEGA, APVV, the European Structural Funds, the International Visegrad Fund, the EEA and Norway Grants, and artistic and research grants of the Slovak Arts Council. She collaborates on various projects with professional and non-professional theatres and cultural institutions throughout Slovakia. She also has long-standing experience in evaluating grant applications and assessing the quality of scientific research outputs.
She has served for many years as a member of the critical platform of the prestigious Slovak theatre festival Dotyky a spojenia (Contacts and Encounters), as both a jury member and chair of the jury of Scénická žatva (Scenic Harvest), the oldest European festival of non-professional theatre, and as a member of dramaturgical boards and curator of the international festivals Nová dráma/New Drama and Dotyky a spojenia. She has also led workshops focusing on critical thinking and theatre criticism.
She is the author of dozens of scholarly studies and the author or co-author of several monographs, including The Brecht Problem II: Elsewhere (2021), History of Slovak Puppet Theatre Drama (2020), Contemporary Slovak Theatre at a Time of Social Transformation (2017), Thinking and Feeling through Theatre: A Dialogue Emerging from Silence (2015), Theatre Not Only as an Artistic Activity (2014), History of Slovak Drama of the Twentieth Century (2011), and Controversial Drama as Reflection of Reality (2010).
She is also active as an editor and has edited numerous scholarly volumes, including Closeness – Loneliness – Resilience (2025), Theatre and the Human Being (2024), Theatre for the Twenty-First Century (2023), Theatre and Interfaces (2022), Theatre in a Changing World and the Transformations of Theatre (2021), Stimuli and Visions of Twenty-First-Century European Theatre (2020), Theatre and Drama in the Context of a Restless Europe (2019), Theatre as a Value-based Discourse: Slovak Theatre and Contemporary European Theatre Culture (2018), Contemporary Theatre Studies and Theatre: The Relationship between Theatre Scholarship, Education, and Performance in the Twenty-First Century (2018), and Theatre Directors at the Turn of the Millennium (2014).
Her scholarly achievements have been recognised through several awards, including the Literary Fund Award for Scientific and Professional Literature for Contemporary Slovak Theatre at a Time of Social Transformation (2018), the Slovak Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport Award for Science and Technology in the category Scientific and Technological Team of the Year for the collective monograph History of Slovak Drama of the Twentieth Century (2012), the Award of the President of the Slovak Republic, H.E. Ivan Gašparovič, for a Young Scientist of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (2010), and a scholarship from the Štefan Schwarz Fund of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (2010 - 2014).