THEA 1342 - WORLD THEATRE: 1640 - 1890

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
World Theatre 1640 - 1890 is the second in a world theatre history sequence designed to explore the development of dramatic forms, theatre practices, and performance from the fifth century B.C.E. to today. We will discuss histories of theatre and performance (scripts, design, audiences, conventions, cultural functions, etc.) within contexts of social, artistic, economic, and political events, both local and global. The survey is split into five sections that focus on key themes, questions, and narratives in world theatre history. Within each section, we will analyze and compare representative case studies to better understand performance as a practice and as a site of history making. We also will question how theatre and performance helps produce, reinforce, and challenge understandings of race, gender, class, and sexuality throughout the world. Throughout the semester, we will explore a variety of theatre and performance forms, including seventeenth century French comedy, bunraku, Beijing opera, indigenous performance in the Americans, transatlantic anti-slavery performances, melodrama, and realism among others. We will investigate world theatre history from a historiographical perspective. This means that we will examine our material not only for content, but also for how it conveys that content. We will question how the construction of theatre history impacts the perspectives and performances included and excluded in our narratives as well as reflects and generates ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and class. In our exploration of how theatre history is crafted, we will develop critical historical skills and tools, including how to ask historical questions, assess primary sources, critique narratives, and clearly communicate our historiographical ideas and arguments. In the process, we will reflect on our own roles in the production of historical knowledge, especially in relation to race, gender, class, and sexuality.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: Letter Grade
Course Attributes: Asian Studies, DSAS Cross-Cult. Awareness General Ed. Requirement, DSAS Diversity General Ed. Requirement, DSAS Historical Analysis General Ed. Requirement, Global Studies, Medieval & Renaissance Studies, SCI Diversity General Ed. Requirements, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req., SCI Polymathic Contexts: Humanistic GE. Req., SCI Polymathic Contexts: Soc/Behav. GE. Req., Undergraduate Research, West European Studies

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