Black Culture and Performance

THEATRST 550S

New Course Fall 2023

Professor Douglas A. Jones

Black Culture and Performance

Theater Studies Major - Area 2 (Dramatic Literature, Theater History, Performance Studies)

What is black embodiment? Black feeling? Black performance? This course explores these questions, among others, by taking up three major cultural movements: New Negro/Harlem Renaissance; Black Arts Movement; and contemporary "post-blackness." We will study black drama, performance art, visual art, and film. Major writers and artists might include Marita Bonner, Zora Neale Hurson, Adrienne Kennedy, Alice Childress, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka, Aleshea Harris, Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins, Barry Jenkins, and Jackie Sibblies Drury. We will also read theories of identity formation, racialized experience, and black life, among other prevailing concerns in Black (Performance) Studies.

What is black embodiment? Black feeling? Black performance? This course explores these questions, among others, by taking up three major cultural movements: New Negro/Harlem Renaissance; Black Arts Movement; and contemporary 'post-blackness.' We will study black drama, performance art, visual art, and film. Major writers and artists might include Marita Bonner, Zora Neale Hurson, Adrienne Kennedy, Alice Childress, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka, Aleshea Harris, Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins, Barry Jenkins, and Jackie Sibblies Drury. We will also read theories of identity formation, racialized experience, and black life, among other prevailing concerns in Black (Performance) Studies.

Notes

open to graduates and advanced undergraduates

Curriculum Codes
  • CCI
  • R
  • W
  • ALP
Cross-Listed As
  • AAAS 550S
  • ENGLISH 550S
Typically Offered
Occasionally