AMST 414
Race and Performance Spring 2024
Division II Writing Skills Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed AAS 414 / WGSS 414

Class Details

How does one “do” race? This seminar offers a survey of foundational and emergent scholarship at the nexus of performance studies, critical ethnic studies, and gender and sexuality studies alongside contemporary visual and performance art works. It will explore how the framework of performance destabilizes notions of race, gender, and sexuality as identities that are inherent to us and approaches them as ones we enact, do, and undo. We will begin the course by tracing key concepts in performance studies (i.e., performance, performative, performativity) before examining a range of performances that respond to and negotiate life under the ongoing conditions of racial capitalism, empire, anti-blackness, and settler colonialism. To this end, we will focus on how qualities attributed to racialized and gendered bodies, such as silence, diseased, patience, depression, passivity, and aloofness, are retooled as feminist and queer of color actions or positions.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 12
Expected: 12
Class#: 3565
Grading: yes pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: in-class discussion, weekly posts, class presentation, short written assignments, and final project (with creative option)
Prerequisites: AMST 101 or WGSS 101/202 and upper level courses in AMST, WGSS, or related fields
Enrollment Preferences: AMST seniors and juniors; WGSS seniors and juniors; AAS concentrators
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills Difference, Power, and Equity
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AAS 414 Division II WGSS 414 Division II AMST 414 Division II
WS Notes: Weekly discussion posts, short writing assignments that will lead to the final assignment, and a self-assessment reflection. Additionally, students will draft and present an object-based analysis paper (incorporating primary and secondary materials), give and receive peer feedback, and submit a final, edited version.
DPE Notes: This course centrally examines the nexus of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability and explores a bevy of strategies deployed to respond to overlapping structures of power, including racial capitalism, settler colonialism, anti-blackness, and empire.
Attributes: AAS Capstone
AMST 400-level Senior Seminars
WGSS Theory Courses

Class Grid

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