ARAB 231
Race and Performance Fall 2024
Division I D Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed THEA 231

Class Details

How does race function in performance, and, dare we say, “live and in living color?” How does one deconstruct discrimination at its roots? From a perspective of global solidarity, we will read plays every week and examine how race functions in theater and performance. This class offers students a discussion that does not center whiteness, but takes power, history, culture, philosophy, and hierarchy as core points of debate. In the first three weeks, we will establish the common terms of the discussion about stereotypes, representation, and historical claims, but then we will quickly move toward an advanced conversation about effective discourse and activism through art, performance, and cultural production. In this class, we assume that colonialism, slavery, white supremacy, and oppressive contemporary state apparatuses are real, undeniable, and manifest. Since our starting point is clear, our central question is not about recognizing or delineating the issues, but rather, it is a debate about how to identify the target of our criticism in order to counter oppression effectively and dismantle long-standing structures. Not all BIPOC communities are represented in this course, as claiming comprehensive inclusion in a single semester would be tokenistic and disingenuous. Instead, we will aspire to understand and negotiate some of the complexities related to race in several communities locally in the U.S. and beyond.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 14
Expected: 14
Class#: 2010
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: Requirement/Evaluation: Participation; performance review; in-class presentation; and final paper.
Prerequisites: None.
Enrollment Preferences: Declared or prospective Theatre majors; students who have taken Theatre 101.
Distributions: Divison I Difference, Power, and Equity
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ARAB 231 Division I THEA 231 Division I
DPE Notes: Entire focus of the course is on how representations of race in cultural production affect ideas surrounding oppression, discriminatory social structures, etc.

Class Grid

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