What is performance? How does it mean what it means? This course provides an overview of some of the key theories and practices animating the study and embodiment of performance across various sites. Examining an array of critical, cultural, and expressive texts—from staged events to visual art to examples of performance in everyday life—we will sharpen particular focus on the ideas and strategies that scholars, artists, activists, and ordinary figures alike have developed and deployed to expand understandings of performance as a lens, methodology, object of analysis, and mode of critical and creative inquiry. Through class discussions, presentations, writing assignments, and viewings, students in this course will enhance their understanding of dramatic and performance theory, deepen their knowledge of the disciplines of theater and performance studies, and develop a greater appreciation for the ways theory and practice are often mutually constitutive and inextricably linked.
This is a designated writing course. As such, it incorporates multiple assignments designed to assist students with developing the necessary skills for writing effectively within the disciplines of theater and performance studies. Students will engage different forms of writing—critical essays, performance analyses, and research papers, for example—and will have opportunities to workshop, revise, and receive feedback on their work throughout the semester. One of the aims of the course is to investigate writing as a mode of learning.
This is a designated writing course. As such, it incorporates multiple assignments designed to assist students with developing the necessary skills for writing effectively within the disciplines of theater and performance studies. Students will engage different forms of writing—critical essays, performance analyses, and research papers, for example—and will have opportunities to workshop, revise, and receive feedback on their work throughout the semester. One of the aims of the course is to investigate writing as a mode of learning.
- Teacher: Isaiah Wooden