Courses
The
curriculum of the Department of Performance Studies, from freshman
gateway course to advanced doctoral seminar, embraces courses in which
students perform as a way of knowing, complementing the more
conventional epistemologies of reading and discussing texts, writing
research papers, and conducting field research.
The undergraduate program of study begins with the introductory course
The Analysis and Performance of Literature (a pre-requisite for
200-level courses in the department). Subsequently, students choose
among 200-level offerings focusing on the performance of literary texts
and on performance and culture. In the 300-level courses (which require
at least one 200-level course) students expand on these perspectives in
courses that investigate such areas as adapting and staging texts,
fieldwork and performance studies, performance of various literary
genres, and performance art.
The graduate program of study investigates performance as artistic
practice and as means of understanding historical, social, and cultural
practices. Students develop critical and analytical skills, conduct
research and engage performance as both subject and method of study.
Coursework begins with Studies in Performance and Research Methods in
Performance Studies. Subsequent coursework includes performance theory
and criticism, intercultural performance, cultural studies and
performance ethnography, and performance art.
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Courses Primarily for Freshmen and Sophomores
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Critical reading, written analysis, and performance of literary texts; general introduction to performance studies.
Introduction to the analysis and performance of poetry.
Introduction to the study of narrative performance.
Exploration
of performance as an experiential and compositional process.
Introduction to artistic and social performance processes.
Performative
bases of culture; social structures, beliefs, values, and tensions in
expressive forms; how cultural performances sustain or subvert human
societies.
Introduction
to theories and methods of adapting narrative for the stage, with
special emphasis on the chamber theatre text and its relationship to
film, drama, and other performance modes.
Courses Primarily for Juniors, Seniors, and Graduate Students
1.
Introduction to theories on gender in relation to selected literary
texts. Close attention to how gender is prescribed, reinforced, and
transgressed, and to the ways in which race, class and sexuality
disrupt and/or affirm these representations. Performance used as a
critical methodology to highlight the interplay between theories of
gender and literary representation. 2. Examination of theories of
gender performance from a cultural studies perspective. How gender
theory may enable critical readings of the body in performance. Close
attention paid to live performance, including drag, performance art,
and film. Examination of the different "positionalities" of the critic
of gender performance, especially with regard to race, class, and
sexuality. Students attend live performances and view films outside of
class. A third course in this series is offered through the Department
of Theatre. (THEATRE 307-0)
The use of performance in the analysis and criticism of modern and contemporary poetry.
Exploration
and performance of contemporary literature by black writers in three
major genres. 1. Drama. 2. Narrative fiction. 3. Poetry.
Conceptual view of human beings as actors. Dramatism and the perspective of life as theatre.
Exploration of the dramatic impulse in nonfiction texts. Emphasis on autobiographical and intercultural works.
Genres
of oral literature and an introduction to the methods and aims of
folklore research. Two themes in modern folkloristics: the nature of
verbal art as performance and the importance of cultural context.
The
use of performance in the analysis and criticism of
Shakespeare's historical plays. Special emphasis on presentational performance modes.
Exploration
of nonverbal body movement and gestural vocabularies in theatre, dance,
and performance art, with reference to TV/film and productions of the
body in visual and commercial media and popular-cultural styles.
The
use of performance in the analysis and criticism of selected post-war
American literature. Special emphasis on the relationship between
literature, film, and American popular culture.
The
use of performance in the analysis and criticism of selected
nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels. Special emphasis on the
representation of character psychology in novelistic discourse.
1.
Theatrical convention, presentational mode, and conscious artifice in
the performance of dramatic literature, poetry, and nonfiction. 2.
Theory and practice of chamber theatre, its conventions and
presentational modes; adaptation, staging and performance of prose
fiction. Choice of performer's or director's perspective.
1.
History, development, and theories of performance art as a live-art
genre from the modernist avant-garde to contemporary cross-cultural
forms. Media in all forms, with emphasis on performance process and
audience relationship. 2. Further theoretical and laboratory
exploration of compositional processes.
Theory
and practice of fieldwork on performance, from the collection of data
to the write-up and presentation of material; practical fieldwork
experience.
Primary
emphasis on extensive critical study and performance of Joyce's
Ulysses, resulting in either a lecture-performance, a recital, or a
research paper.
Content
varies but course focuses on the major poems of a significant writer or
writers, permitting an in-depth encounter with the writer, the cultural
context, and performance-related issues.
Readings, discussion, and creative work in performance studies research and artistic practice.
Intensive participation in off-campus production and/or field research experience. Departmental approval required.
Ethnographic
study of festivals, parades, exhibitions, civic celebrations, and other
genres of urban cultural performance. Emphasis on multi-ethnic
expressions of Chicago identity. Field research methods.
Courses Primarily for Graduate Students
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Principles governing the congruence of literary texts and their oral presentation.
Critical study of the work of one writer, resulting in a lecture/recital.
Critical
writings from ancient times to the present, tracing uses of and
development in the performance of text; analysis of contemporary
principles and practices.
Contemporary
theories that explore a dialogical relationship between culture and
performance. The creative, dynamic, and processual energies of culture
as expressed in performance genres.
Participatory apprenticeship seminar based on the observation
of scripting process and rehearsal for a production of a narrative
work, resulting in major research papers by seminar members.
The
principles and methods of literary criticism and their bearing on the
aesthetics of performance. Texts considered historically from Plato and
Aristotle to deconstructionism.
Interdisciplinary
seminar introducing methods of performance research that explore, both
analytically and creatively, the movement of performance across the
traditional boundaries of the live arts and the visual and electronic
media.
Critical
examination of theories of representation as they apply to performance,
with special reference to repetition and improvisation, the ideology of
form, intertextuality, metaphor, irony, parody, synesthesia,
idiophonics, and effort qualities in human action.
This seminar explores
the implications of postmodern theory and criticism on performance
studies. Seminar participants will be asked to develop and create
performances and critiques in relation to “postmodern” theories.
Topics vary.
