SYLLABUS

Thurs. Sept. 10:  Opening Class

Why do humans (and others) "perform"? Why "act"? Why "play"? What are theaters for? Why and how do we limit the terrain of the "theatrical" in distinction to something that might be termed "reality"? Can something be real and theatrical at once? Or fake and real at once? What are the limits of theatre? The history of the screen is theatre history, as is the history of the computer. What of ancient performance remains in these formations? Are there "universals" of performance? That is, do similar performance behaviors happen all over the world in many different cultures and contexts? What differs? Also, how does live performance transmit itself? What remains of performance after a "show" is over? What can we know of prehistoric practices, for example? And, is theater itself a time machine? The English word “theory” comes from the Greek “theoria,” meaning contemplation, speculation, or sight. It is related to the word “theatron,” or place for viewing. Theater and theory are kin. They are both places to theorize; to visualize; both places to try out an otherwise; to hypothesize: what if the world were this way?
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Section 1: What is performance?
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Tues. Sept 15: What is performance? Prehistory and Now
Read: "Theatre's Next Act?" in the New York Times, July 8, 2020.
Watch: The Werner Herzog film Cave of Forgotten Dreams linked through Canvas
Read: A section of Richard Schechner, "Toward a Poetics of Performance" in Performance Theory. (note, the underlines are from whoever marked up the library book)
Read: a very short piece by Brown's former Provost, "The Superbowl's Strange Tribe." Recommended: selections from Performance Studies: An Introduction, pages 28-51
total read = 34 pages and one film.
reading response prompts are here.
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Thursday. Sept. 17: What is Ritual? 
Read: selections from Performance Studies: An Introduction, pages  52-86.
Read: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: "Skywoman Falling" pg 3-10; "An Offering" 33-38; "Burning Cascade Head" 241-253.

Watch this video on social rituals of everyday life.  total read = 58 pages.  
reading response prompts are here.
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Tues. Sept 22:   Masking 1:  Possession vs. Representation

Read: Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams, The Shamans of Prehistory,11-29.  
Read: Chief Robert Joseph, "Behind the Mask," Down from the Shimmering Sky, 18-35.

Read: Cara McCarty, "Offense/Defense" in Masks: Faces of Culture, 275-298.
 total read = 58 pages   
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Thurs. Sept 24: Masking 2: Showing Ourselves to Ourselves as Others

Read: Clifford Geertz, "The Cockfight" in The Interpretation of Cultures, 412-453 (cuts have been made, so there are about 20 pages overall).    

Compare and contrast with D. Soyini Madison 's introduction to Arts of Activism, 1-33.
total read= 51 pages. 
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Tues. Sept. 29:  Masking 3: Theatrical Masking and the Marketplace

Read; Maurya Wickstrom, "The Lion King, Mimesis, and Disney's Magical Capitalism"

Read: Karl Marx, very brief selection from Capital

total read = 23 pages
GROUP ONE  to share documentation of project/scene

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  Thurs. Oct 1: Performance and Cultural Mimicry 
 Read: Wole Soyinka, Death and the King's Horseman 
 total read = 1 play

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 Section 2: Roots of Performance --  Egypt and Greece

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Tues. Oct. 6-- Ancient Egypt

Read:  The Triumph of Horus    
Read: Ronald J. Leprohon, "Ritual Drama in Ancient Egypt," 259-284.

Read: Jan Assmann, Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, 349-368

total read = 48 pages   

GROUP TWO to share documentation of project/scene

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Thurs. Oct. 8   The Theatre of Dionysus

Read: Euripides, The Bakkhai
Read: David Wiles, Greek Theater Performance, chapters 1 and 2.

total read = 1 play and 42 pages [heavy reading day, be sure to make time]

GROUP THREE to share documentation of scene between Pentheus and Dionysus
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Tues. Oct. 13: Greek Comedy   Read: Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 
Read: Wiles, chapters 3 and 4

total read = 1 play and 40 pages [heavy reading day, be sure to make time]

GROUP FOUR  to share documentation of project/scene
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Thurs Oct. 15:  Plato and Aristotle on Mimesis 

Read: A, Plato, The Republic: Book 7 (220-251)

Read: B. Plato, The Republic: Book 10 (313-345)
Read C: Aristotle,  The Poetics of Aristotle, 31-68

Super highly recommended: Wiles, chapter 5

Assignment: You will be assigned to closely one of the three (A, B, or C). You should  come to class and be able to illuminate your philosopher's points for the rest of the class. Please also read another of your choice, so that you read your assigned A, then chose from B and C; or assigned C, chose from A or B. You get it!  You can also substitute and read Wiles chapter 5 for your second if you prefer.

total read = some combo of  38,  31, 32

1000- to 1500-word paper due, developed from one of your reading responses or a topic of your choice pertaining to either section 1 or section 2 or a combination.

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Section 3:  Roots of Performance  -- Asian and African Performance Traditions
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Tues Oct. 20:  Theatre Anthropology and a small taste of Japanese Noh Read: Eugenio Barba, Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology

Read: A very short play from the canon of Japanese Noh Theatre: Dojoji

read = There are so many pictures! 

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Thurs. Oct 22:   India: The Performative Bases of Ancient Indian Theatre and Dance    
Read: Bharat-Muni, selections from the Natyasatra, 23-66    
Read: John Emigh, Summary Notes on Bhava and Rasa    
Read: Sreenath Nair, selection from "Introduction" to The Natyashastra and the Body in the Natyasastra" 14-30.

total read = 61 pages

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Tues. Oct 27 India: Kalidasa's Sakuntala    
Read: Kalidasa, Sakuntala in Theater of Memory, Act 1 (whole play recommended)

Read: Barbara Stoler Miller, Theater of Memory, chapter "Kalidasa's World and His Plays"

Assignment: make a gestural sequence you can perform on zoom.

total read: 1 act and 38 pages

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Thurs. Oct. 29  Africa: A Variety of Ritual/Drama/Dance/Orature Traditions 
 Read: Ousmane Diakhaté and Hansel Ndumbe Eyoh, "The Roots of African Theatre Ritual and Orality in the Pre-colonial Period"  
Read: M.T. Drewal, Yoruba Ritual,  pages 1-28.

Read: Kennedy C. Chinyowa, "The Context, Performance, and Meaning of Shona Ritual Drama," 3-13.

Recommended:  Doris Green, "Traditional Dance in Africa," 13-26.

total read = 41 pages

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Tues. Nov. 3:  Africa: The Power of Community, the Politics of Performance Space    
Read: Malidoma Patrice Some, Ritual: Power, Healing, Community, 69-91. 
Read: N'gugi wa Thiongo, "Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space," 11-30.    
Read:  David Kerr, African Popular Theatre, 41-58.

total read = 57 GROUPS FIVE and SIX  to share documentation of projects/scenes 

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Section 6: Medieval Europe and the Americas
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Thurs,  Nov. 5:  Multiple Medeas 
Read: Euripides Medea Read: Seneca Medea     
GROUP SEVEN  to share documentation of project/scene

total read = 2 plays
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Tues. Nov. 10:  Theatre in the Roman Empire 

Read: Odai Johnson, "Unspeakable Histories: Terror, Spectacle, and Genocidal Memory," 97-116.

Read: Plautus, The Captives
Highly recommended -- read: A. M. Nagler, Sourcebook in Theatrical History, 17-36

total read = 1 play and 19 pages

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Thurs. Nov 12:  The Holy Roman Empire and attitudes toward theatre

Do early church fathers encourage theatre? Why/Why not?

Read: Saint Augustine's "City of God," 94-99.  (What is  St. Augustine attitude toward theatre?)

Read: and Tertullian's "On the Spectacles,"  85-94.  (What is Tertullian's attitude?)

Early church theatre:

Read: The Quem Quaeritis Trope

Read: The nun Hrosvit's play Dulcitius, 45-53.

Medieval theatre outside of the church:

Read: John Spaulding Gatton, "There Must Be Blood," 79-89.

Read: A Christmas Mumming, The Play of St. George (a four page play)

Highly Recommended Read: Andrew Sofer, The Stage Life of Props

total read = 37 pages

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Tues. Nov. 17: Medieval Corpus Christi and the Inka    
Read: Carolyn Dean, Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ, 7-62.

total read = 55 pages.

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Thurs. Nov. 19  Native American Performance and the Power of Vision 
Read: Black Elk and John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks, 177-212

Leanne Simpson, Dancing on our Turtle's Back, chapter 2 and chapter 5

Recommended: Jacqueline Shae Murphy, The People Have Always Been Dancing

total read =  59 pages

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Tues. Nov. 24: "Old World" Colonials and the "Baseless Fabric" of Vision

Read Shakespeare, The Tempest 

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Choice of Final exam, Final Paper, or Final Project

Exam: -- 3 short essay questions from across the semester selected by the professor, chosed from a study guide, and deliverable in 24  hours,

Paper: a final 10-page paper on a topic of your choice (can be developed from one of your prior two papers) . Consider writing about a part of the world we did not study, such as ancient or medieval China, or go intto greater depth on percolonial indigenous performance forms.

Project -- Documentation of a scene inspired by one of the traditional (ancient or medieval or precolonial) forms we studied, accompanied by an annotated bibliography of at least three additional texts used in research toward the project's completion.

 

Course Objectives and Requirements

Objectives

1. This class is designed to introduce students to performance theory and basic performance studies texts as a way to approach both the challenges of charting performance history and the comparison of performance forms across culture. We will explore theatre history from the Paleolithic through to the Medieval, with focus on Europe, South Asia, Africa and some material from the Americas.

2. To stimulate rigorous questions about the functions of performance in the generation, propagation, and/or negotiations of culture(s). Theatre, dance, ritual, and forms of play are all considered.

3. To introduce students to various global performance forms in historical context, and apply performance theory in engagement with historical material.

4. To encourage students to work to identify the social assumptions informing as well as generated by various theatrical practices (such as the stage/house divide, practices of duration, ritual aspects, levels of codification, levels of improvisation, etc.).

5. To explore prehistorical, ancient, and medieval performance practices while considering the limits of these temporal categories globally.

6. To interrogate traditional historiographical reliance on written forms or archival remains over embodied practices.


Requirements

This course will be based on lecture and in-class discussion of the material we read and, in some cases, view. Due to the broad amount of cultural and historical material covered by this survey, it is essential that students attend all classes and complete all readings.  Whenever possible try and  print out readings and bring the readings in paper form to class. In general, we  strongly recommend reading from print and taking reading notes by pen or pencil. For some of my reasoning toward this recommendation, see this article.  Other studies have shown that note taking on a computer during a lecture is not as effective and handwritten notes for linking the material from  thought to hand and back to brain for recall.  In the days before Covid, no computers would be used during class except to look at reading material when directed by the professor or the TA. Now however, many if not all of the classes will be on zoom, so it is a matter of honor that you do not surf while in class.  In class on zoom you will be required to have your video on unless you have hardship or technical difficulty and, in that case, please communicate with the professor in advance or, if it happens in situ, reach out after class or in a private chat.

Undergraduate students:

General requirements: Reading responses are required and an edited and curated selection of 10-15 of those responses will constitute your final, so keeping up with this activity across the semester is vital to your success in this class.   You will be responsible for an in-class showing of documentation for a performance project. There are also two short papers due in the semester.  Participation in class discussion and focused attention to lectures in each class

Performance project: This is a group-based class presentation of research as performance. The performance part of the presentation should take no more than 10 minutes.  Your group will have time to then discuss research and take questions from the class, up to 10 minutes.  I expect careful research on the period/style as well as theoretical clarity in a piece that is creatively presented and well thought out. The whole group of you should arrange to meet with the Professor or the T.A. a couple of weeks beforehand so that we can talk about the presentation and plan accordingly. Office hours or staying after-class for a brief discussion can work for this.  See the Group Performance link for more on the pedagogical intention of this project.

Attendance and reading responses: You will be required to write a reading response, roughly 150-200 words in length (about half to one page), for each class, posted to the Canvas class site.  Please respond to the questions posted for each day on the syllablog.  While attendance and reading responses are only 20% of the grade, having more than two (2) absences over the course of the semester will adversely affect your grade. More than 5 unexcused absences may constitute failure. Only illnesses, religious holidays and family emergencies constitute excused absences and should have a note from a doctor or dean. Please see the professor or the TA immediately if you are having problems with attendance or doing the work for the course. Consistent tardiness will be counted as absences if chronic. Please act accordingly.

NOTE:  I discourage theatre arts and performance studies concentrators from taking this course S/NC. Please note that S/NC students must have at least 75% attendance and turn in 75% of the response papers, in addition to full completion of the other class requirements, to pass the class. Students who do not meet these requirements will fail to receive credit for the class.

Extra credit, non-required paper: For undergrads, if you would like to write a paper on any topic pertaining to this class that will allow you to do further research and present it to the professor, feel free to email me with the paper and I will consider it for extra credit. This paper should be 8-10 pages and can be due  by 5pm on December 17 and must be emailed to Rebecca_Schneider@brown.edu. The extra credit paper can bring your grade up 1/2 a mark if it receives a high mark.  So, a B would become a B+, a B+ would become an A-. If the paper is less than A work, it may not affect your final grade. That is, if your overall grade is B and you submit a B paper, the grade will still be B. If you have questions about this, please let me know.

Grading for Undergraduates:

Performance Projects: 10%

Midterm: 35%

Attendance/vocal participation/reading reports: 20% first half of semester, 35% after midterm

Please note that the readers reports after Nov. 7 will constitute, in essence, your final exam. We will evaluate your post-midterm responses and grade them as a final exam. So, note, 35% of your overall class grade will be evaluated based on these reading responses. Of the 9 reading responses scheduled post mid-term, 8 of them will be used to evaluate your final grade – so, one, your weakest, will not count. Eight reading responses will each be worth 12.5 points to total 100 for grading. We will not grade these responses until the end of the semester.

Books can be bought at the bookstore (see link to book order). But all books are also on reserve at the Rock. All other reserves are available as PDFs or links on OCRA. Some PDFs are on the Canvas site. If you can't find it at OCRA, check Canvas. And remember: you must have a paper copy in class,  or share with only 1 other person.

Note: No in-class recording of lectures or other classroom activities is allowed without permission in advance. 

Statement on Graphic Nature of Some Materials:

Some material may be explicit in terms of gender, race, class, trauma, religion, eating habits, violence, sex, and other categories. All of the material in this class may be difficult for someone – difficulty is, in fact, part of what we will explore. There is, historically, a lot of violence in theatre -- even in comedies. There are rape scenes in theatre, beheadings, bestiality, everyone is almost always at least playing at transgender (or trans-person) in many places and many times and we will engage with this material in a forthright manner. In the medieval period, for example, there is a very large amount of blood split in the name of Christ, and anti-Semitism on the part of early Christians. And the Roman empire has a long arm – arguably reaching us here where we sit today – so we will not always discuss attitudes, practices, worldviews as of a distant past. This material clearly could "trigger" emotional responses. Theatre is often about the triggering of emotional responses, and you may find yourself in the theatre.  There is brutal slavery in the ancient world as there has been in the modern,  both pagan and Christian. There are widely open or rigidly closed attitudes to sexuality in many parts of the world that we may discuss as well. Please see the Professor in advance, or at any time, regarding questions or concerns.

Statement on Diversity and Inclusion

It is my intention that students from all backgrounds and perspectives be well served by this course, that students' learning needs be addressed both in and out of class, and that the diversity that students bring to this class be viewed as a resource, strength and benefit. It is my intention to present materials and activities that are respectful of diversity: gender, sexuality, ability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, and culture. Mutual respect and a spirit of intellectual generosity will further everyone’s learning experience. Students are encouraged to express themselves openly with the expectation that their voices will be heard. Finally, if there is anything that I or members of the seminar need to know to communicate respectfully and effectively with you -- for example, your lived name, preferred pronouns, access needs, pronunciation of your name(s), etc. -- please let me know.

Learning Accommodations

Brown is committed to full inclusion of all students. Please inform me early in the term if you require accommodations or modification of any course procedures. For more information, please contact Student and Employee Accessibility Services at 401-863-9588 or SEAS@brown.edu. Whatever the circumstances, please speak with me if you’re having a problem in the class and I will work to find a solution. Accommodations are available for absences due to religious observances.

Academic Code and Plagiarism:
Those who violate either the letter or spirit of Brown University regulations will face disciplinary proceedings and may automatically fail the course. See: http://www.brown.edu/academics/college/degree/policies/academic-code. 

Credit hour statement: 
Over 14 weeks, students will spend 2.5 hours per week in class (35 hours total). Required reading for the seminar meetings is expected to take up approximately 8 hours per week (112 hours). Working on reading responses and studying for the midterms including the final reading responses, is estimated at approximately 60 hours over the course of the term. Actual times will vary for each student. Final grades are not determined by the amount of time a student spends on the course.

Academic Code for ALL STUDENTS:

Below is a statement on Brown’s Academic Code. Please feel free to ask many any questions about the code or proper citation for your research projects. I will not tolerate academic dishonesty.

Norms regarding the quality and originality of academic work are often much more stringent and demanding in college than they are in high school. All Brown students are responsible for understanding and following Brown's academic code, which is described below. Academic achievement is ordinarily evaluated on the basis of work that a student produces independently. Students who submit academic work that uses others' ideas, words, research, or images without proper attribution and documentation are in violation of the academic code. Infringement of the academic code entails penalties ranging from reprimand to suspension, dismissal, or expulsion from the University. Brown students are expected to tell the truth. Misrepresentations of facts, significant omissions, or falsifications in any connection with the academic process (including change of course permits, the academic transcript, or applications for graduate training or employment) violate the code, and students are penalized accordingly. This policy also applies to Brown alums, insofar as it relates to Brown transcripts and other records of work at Brown.Misunderstanding the code is not an excuse for dishonest work. Students who are unsure about any point of Brown's academic code should consult their courses instructors or an academic dean, who will be happy to explain the policy.