Special Topics in Dramatic Literature
THEATRST 290S-7
Biography: Page, Stage, and Screen
Spring 2025
Professor Douglas A. Jones, Jr.
THEATRST 290S-7.02, ENGLISH 290S.03
Tuesdays, Thursdays 10:05 -- 11:20 a.m.
Page 106
ALP
What can we learn from close examinations of a person's life? Quite a lot, it seems. Readers and audiences have made biography arguably the most popular non-fiction genre today, whether in book form or as a biopic. They crave how the story of a remarkable a life offers a unique, personalized window onto world events, peculiar environments, and the cultivation of genius of all sorts. But we rarely study approaches, form, and methods of crafting biographies. This course explores biographies on the page (non-fiction), on stage (theater and opera), and on screen (film). Students will not only read and watch biographies, but also they will write their own. We read explore biographies of artists, writers, athletes, politicians, and everyday figures. As part of our investigation, we will focus on a single subject (perhaps Abraham Lincoln, Virginia Woolf, or Malcolm X) on page, stage, and screen to consider how that subject is rendered can be rendered differently depending on form and ideological orientations.
Topics vary and may be repeated for credit.
Notes
Spring 2025 Topic "Biography: Page, Stage, and Screen"
