Class Information
Instructor: Freeman, Elizabeth
Time: R 3:10-6:00
Location: 308 Voorhies
Description
This course will sample a broad historical range of performance traditions that might conceivably be called “queer”: cross-dressing on the Early Modern English stage; 19th century minstrelsy; early 20th century Harlem cabaret; 1950s camp; 1980s vogue/ballroom culture; late 20th century trans* beauty pageants, 2000s karaoke, and global contemporary transgender performance. We will look at these performance traditions through primary works of literature, film, and performance recording, alongside of critical readings that analyze the traditions themselves in terms of queer performance theory, and/or alongside of more general explorations of queer performance and performativity theory. Students will present an “embodied critical act” of one reading once during the quarter, and may choose either a traditional final paper or a performance project with an accompanying analytic piece of writing explaining their performance and its relation to course materials. Readings TBA, as this course was reassigned to this instructor only very recently, but critics/theorists are likely to include Judith Butler, Joshua Chambers-Letson, Eric Lott, Martin Manalansan, José Esteban Muñoz, Esther Newton, Marcia Ochoa, Eve Sedgwick, and others.
Grading
Embodied Critical Act (like a presentation, only fun): 20%
Discussion: 40%
Final Paper or Performance Piece With Analysis: 40%
Texts
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare, ISBN 978-1903436998
Gigantic Course Packet