Course No: 350:504
Index #:
Distribution Requirement: A1, A5, B
Wednesdays - 3:50 pm
MU 207
Pre/Postmodern Performance
Sarah Novacich / Talley Murphy
This course considers the critical relationship between late medieval drama and performance theory by reading between contemporary theory, medieval performance texts, and contemporary plays that take their cues from medieval ones. Although our examination of medieval texts and performances will take up issues long associated with them (including, for instance, community; race; the performance of gender; religious affiliation; and the vexed role of iconography) we are particularly interested in interrogating potential reciprocities between medieval drama and performance theory. Emerging in the 1960s from literary/theater studies and anthropology, performance studies began as an inquiry into the relationship between sacred ritual and mundane performances. Since that time, performance theory has taken up a variety of cultural phenomena to describe relationships between embodiment, history, materiality, and performative (or theatrical) enactment. Reading across these theoretical investments enable us to take up both medieval and twenty-first century performances that reflect medieval forms: examples from the liturgy; morality and miracle plays; medieval and modern cycle dramas, documentary drama, street dances, historical reenactments, and protests. While performance studies often theorizes the presence of the past, its ultimate site of analysis is almost always now. What might medieval theater offer to performance theory’s dedication to the present?