OAFP 5515 - Performance Studies: The Political Dimension of Performance

This course introduces students to performance studies and provides them with analytical and methodological tools necessary for research on performance practices. Students are introduced to the concept of performance, including artistic performances (theatre, dance, music, film...) and civic performances (self-presentations, daily interactions, rituals, speech acts, political organisations, social movements...), and invited to study how different performances are constructed and how they produce political effects. To do so, the course provides insight into various performance practices, performance theory, political-philosophy, and cultural studies. The course is meant for students interested to develop theoretical tools necessary for the study of the political significance of performance practices in constructing our lives, such as rituals, games, sports, grassroots, protests, politics, everyday life performances, work, and the performing arts, including the performativity of sex, class, race, and gender roles, among others. The course content consists of lectures, close reading of texts, video and slide projections, and assignments. These course elements will help participants analyse selected performances individually and discuss them in groups. The goal is to develop skills in analysing the ways performances are constructed, the ways they shape societies, and the ways they might be constructed otherwise in order to convey alternative ethico-political effects. Reflective discussions on texts and selected performances have for purpose to engage participants with course topics.

Goran PETROVIC

Enseignement électif

English

This is a lecture/discussion course. Attendance and participation are essential. For each subsequent module students will be given 2 course handouts to read in advance, such as journal articles, book chapters, interviews, or newspaper articles. Course handouts will allow students to fulfil their two assignments that consist of group presentations and class discussions. Course handouts will also help students write their final papers. This task requires from students to observe, choose, and analyse, a performance executed in an urban setting, such as a café, night club, park, subway, street, or public square, in a theatrical setting, such as a theatre, concert hall, gallery, museum, or sport arena, or in the media such as TV, radio, or internet. On the one hand, the purpose of the final paper is to bring an understanding of what performance could be and what does it do. On the other hand, the purpose is to examine how analysed performances contest or comply with dominant politics and symbolic representations. The final paper should be formulated in a form of maximum 8 pages (font Times New Roman; Format 12; double space).

None

Spring 2020-2021

1. Two assignments (2 group presentations and 2 pages max each): 40% 2. Final paper (8 pages max): 60% 3. Class attendance and participation in class discussions: bonus

This course is a lecture/discussion course and it is imagined as a joint productive activity. Students and the teacher discuss together assigned course handouts and use them as initial devices for the analysis of various performance practices they encounter whether directly or via video excerpts in the class. Accordingly, all performances that are going to be discussed will be suggested by students and the teacher. By bringing together theory and our everyday experience of performance, the course aims to achieve its main goal: to jointly develop tools necessary for the study of the significance of performance practices in constructing our lives. To enable the highest level of this achievement, classes will be organised to accommodate both individual and group needs of the students. Students will work individually in order to develop their personal skills and fulfil necessary requirements for the evaluation of their work. However, over the course, they will also work in groups according to their interests and affinities. This is why they will be allowed to develop their final papers individually, but encouraged to do it in groups. Over the course, a few guests from the field of performance practice, performance studies, performance programming, or political theory, are invited.