AFR 262
Young, Gifted & Black : Meditations on the Revolutionary Black American Theatre Canon Fall 2024
Division II W Writing Skills D Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed WGSS 268 / AMST 268 / THEA 268

Class Details

For millennia, Black theater traditions have functioned as tools of ritual: in the names of witnessing, protection, and alchemical change. In this course, we will study contemporary American theater artists focused on Black social realism as a means of radical transformation. Using the framework of art historian Yaa Addae, this course engages “study as a tool of relation. Not domination or inspection.” Through reading, viewing and writing, ours is a query of transformation. The guiding questions for this course are: If we know “story” has the power to change the world – what can the Black theatrical archive teach us about shaping reality with truth-telling and fable making? What systems of oppression fall when we tell the right tales? In the Fall course, students will be asked to view and read plays, engage with essays and create their own theatrical expressions inspired by the works of Lorraine Hansberry, Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Aleshea Harris, James Baldwin, Imani Perry, Woodie King, Jr., Christina Sharpe, Paul Carter Harrison, a.k. Payne, Anna Deveare Smith, August Wilson, Ossie Davis, Zora Neale Hurston and more. This Fall course, focused on dismantling and disrupting the status quo, creates a foundation upon which students will build in the Spring. The Spring course will focus on imagining and building worlds anew. Ideally, students can take both the Fall and Spring courses but it is not required to take both. Understanding sound revolutionary artmaking requires a clear foundation, our key goals will include a personal values statement from which subsequent work will be rooted. Students will also write a short play that activates the elements of our study.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 15
Expected: 12
Class#: 1996
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: Vibrant class participation, weekly readings, a robust personal values statement (2-3 pages), weekly short response papers (1-2 pages), a final short play (5-10 pages)
Prerequisites: None
Enrollment Preferences: If the enrollment limit is exceeded, preference will be given to Africana Studies majors or students who have taken AFR 200.
Distributions: Divison II Writing Skills Difference, Power, and Equity
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AFR 262 Division II WGSS 268 Division II AMST 268 Division II THEA 268 Division I
WS Notes: Each student will write a two - three page personal values statement, seven 1 - 2 page critical response papers, and a five to ten page short play. I will provide written feedback on all writing regarding argument, shape and style. Each student will write a two page critical response to a classmate's play. As the final assignment, each student will revise their short play.
DPE Notes: This course studies the power of African American storytelling traditions and uplifts theater as a tool to shift social dynamics. Students will understand the history of the revolutionary Black theater canon and will build skills in both interpreting and creating plays connected to that lineage.
Attributes: AFR Culture, Performance, and Popular Technologies

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