3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

When someone says that a politician is being “theatrical” or that a protestor is following a “script,” it is rarely meant as a compliment—but why? The implication is that true politics is never theatrical, never scripted, never performed, never entangled with spectacle. Put so baldly, this claim is hard to believe. If, instead, we take for granted that all politics is performed, we are left with several unanswered questions. What would an eye trained on performance (theater, dance, film, comedy, spoken word, etc.) see in our politics that someone else would not? Are there distinct performance traditions in politics, as there are in the performing arts? How do activists and office-holders enter these traditions, learn their ways, and apply them in everyday settings? How are civilians expected (or trained) to engage with this performance of politics—either as spectators or co-performers? What are the key genres of political performance, and what should citizens, activists, and other engaged people know about them? This course surveys key concepts in performance theory (e.g., theatricality, performativity, ritual, play) and asks students to apply these tools to two things: political events and performance-based works of art. Case studies will center around US political and performance history, and may include: the origins of US liberal-democratic political culture in stoical forms of theater, the theatricality of the Civil Rights movement, and the recent transformation of transgressive play from a radical-left to a far-right style of political performance. Students will be invited to bring their expertise in other periods and other political/performance cultures, and to help sharpen our analysis by testing our ideas against those alternate contexts.