ANTH-E 502 - PROF. JANE GOODMAN

What is a performance? How does performative expression both reflect and create social meaning? How may we understand, analyze and represent performances in both everyday life and in formalized productions? How does performance reveal the interaction of public and private life? How have scholars studied and theorized performance in its cultural context? This course is a graduate-level introduction to performance-oriented perspectives on the study of social life. We will explore the principal conceptions that shape performance studies in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, with attention to intellectual history, descriptive and analytic foci, and the potential for capturing what interests us in performance. We will balance our attention between the exploration of theoretical and analytical perspectives on the one hand, and ethnographic, case-study examination of specific performance forms on the other. We will also consider the representation of performance as itself a performative act in film and writing.