THEA 406
Senior Seminar: Special Feelings: Empathy, Intimacy, and Affect in Performance Fall 2013
Division I
This is not the current course catalog

This seminar course is required of all senior Theatre majors. The course is a revolving topics seminar. The subject matter and reading list for each iteration of the course will be determined by the instructor, but will in each instance focus on a current or historical question of theatre theory and practice. It is understood that the subjects addressed in the course will be broad enough to engage the varied interests of each senior class. The specific requirements for the class may vary, but in all cases students will be required to present original research and analysis in a public seminar presentation at the end of the semester. For Fall 2013, the senior seminar will explore the topic of empathy and affect in contemporary art, theatre, and performance. In childhood, we are encouraged to express how we “feel” about art, but once we reach adulthood we are told to stifle our range of emotions and senses: “Look, but don’t touch!” Yet, feelings remain. So: why do we have “special feelings” about some works of art and not others? How do paintings, sculptures, installations, plays, and performances, strive to “affect” us? This interdisciplinary senior seminar will examine works of art that engage both our feelings and senses in empathic ways. What makes a performance reach us? What makes an experience in theatre “intimate”? We’ll read Aristotle on “catharsis,” Heidegger on “moods,” and Tomkins on “affect,” as well as writings by Gilles Deleuze, Eve Sedgwick, Brian Massumi, Susan Leigh Foster, Kathleen Stewart, Sianne Ngai, and Lauren Berlant. Artists/groups covered may include: Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons, Mike Kelley, Marina Abramovic, Sarah Kane, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, Cindy Sherman, Elevator Repair Service, Marie-Virgnie Berbet, and many others. Students will write on and compose oral responses to the material addressed each week, conducting personal research and working towards the completion of an independent project, creative or critical, presented at the end of the term.