Topics vary from semester to semester and have included The Power of Music and Poetry in the Theater; Modern Drama and Theater, 1940 to the Present; Theaters, Tricksters, and Cultural Exchange; Art as Social Action; and The Invisible World (Process Seminar).

This graduate seminar examines art, politics, and cultural production before, during, and after revolutions. We will engage with the work of major theorists and artists (in theater, dance, performance art, film, music, writing, and speech). This course will also examine the role of cultural production in land back struggles that challenge settler colonialism and genocide. Most often revolutions transpire in dialogue with one another revealing common struggles, contradictions, and new creative forms. Thus, in the first half of the course we will focus on case points of comparative revolutions (Haiti-France, Russia-Mexico, and Cuba-Venezuela, among others) through critical readings and some practice-based workshops (open to all levels of experience). By the middle of the course, we will deepen research in specific areas of specialization to identify currents, new questions, and praxis. Research areas include but are not limited to manifestos, tribunals, commemoration, monuments and symbolic sites, spectacle, ceremony, media, popular education, and storytelling. The class will conclude with final papers on course related topics in preparation for advanced dissertation research.

Repeat Rules