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WHAT
IS PERFORMANCE?
PERFORMANCE AND PERFORMANCE THEORY
EN765.01
Thursday 2-4
Location: Carney 304
Prof.
Andrew Sofer
438 Carney
Tel: 2-1653
Mailbox: Carney 447
Office Hours: M W 2:00-3:30 and by appointment
Course
description
Performance theorist Jon McKenzie writes: "Perhaps
one of the most striking cultural paradoxes of the late twentieth
century was that while many critics, practitioners, and scholars
sadly observed theatre’s precipitous decline as an art
form, it nonetheless continued to provide vibrant and supple
models for studying and producing events outside the theatre."1
Performance—as
trope, as practice, and now as interdisciplinary field of
study—is everywhere in critical discourse today. Yet
whether it be Richard Schechner’s notion of "twice-behaved
behavior," Judith Butler’s concept of performativity,
anthropologist Victor Turner’s model of social drama,
or what Rebecca Schneider has termed "explicit female
body performance art," just what constitutes performance
today remains contested. Is it drama, theatre, theory, performance
art, or all of the above?
This is
more than a question of semantics. Schechner has championed
the dismantling of theater arts programs so as to fold them
into departments of performance studies; such departments
already exist at Northwestern University and New York University,
as well as in Europe. The Drama Review, edited by Schechner,
is now subtitled "a Journal of Performance Studies";
other publications dedicated to the field include Performing
Arts Journal and Performance Research. Performance
Studies international (PSi) conferences have been held at
Atlanta, the University of Wales, and Arizona State University.
Meanwhile, scholar-activists like Jill Dolan have defended
the centrality of theater (and theater departments) as a site
for examining cultural resistance to social norms.
This course
has two aims. First, we will attempt to map the still-emerging
field of performance studies, which fuses theater studies,
anthropology, ethnography, and feminist and post-structuralist
theory (and thus provides a useful window on these broader
discourses). To this end we will read some work by what many
consider the founders of the field—Richard Schechner
and Victor Turner—on the relationship between performance
and ritual, together with a classic example of applied performance
ethnography: Clifford Geertz’s "thick description"
of Balinese cock-fighting. We will then move on to read some
of the other major figures (Joseph Roach, Peggy Phelan, Judith
Butler, and others) in readings organized according to thematic
clusters, so as to give you some sense of performance studies’
major concerns.
Second,
we will test the utility of the field’s primary concepts
for the analysis of specific cultural performances.
These will range from actual plays (Caryl Churchill’s
Cloud 9 and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly)
to feminist performance art (Holly Hughes, Rachel Rosenthal),
the documentary performances of Anna Deveare Smith, and film—and
will include at least one local performance event chosen by
the class.
Course
Requirements and Grading
Work will include weekly one-page response papers; a class
presentation; a short book review; and a final long essay
in which you analyze a theater production or cultural performance
of your own choosing, integrating at least some of the theory
we have read. I expect scrupulous attendance; please let
me know in advance if you have to miss class for any reason.
Please take advantage of office hours to try out ideas, seek
research advice, and thrash out paper topics. If you find
yourself bored, confused, or overwhelmed at any point in the
semester, come and see me.
Your final
grade will be a composite based on your final paper (roughly
50%), the other writing you do in the course (roughly 30%),
and attendance/participation throughout the semester, including
your presentation (roughly 20%).
Required
Texts (available at the B.C. Bookstore)
Marvin Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly
Tennessee Williams, Suddenly Last Summer
Caryl Churchill, Cloud 9
I will
ask you to go to the O’Neill media center to watch three
videos before the date we discuss them in class: M. Butterfly,
Fires in the Mirror, and Suddenly Last Summer.
Books
on Reserve in O’Neill
I have
put a star next to books that are recognized as formative
in the field.
Useful
overviews:
Marvin
Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction (London
and New York: Routledge, 1996).
Sue-Ellen
Case, Feminism and Theatre (New York: Methuen, 1988).
Janelle
G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach, eds., Critical Theory and
Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1992).
Essay
collections:
Sue-Ellen
Case, ed., Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory
and Performance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1990).
Sue-Ellen
Case, Philip Brett, and Susan Leigh Foster, eds., Cruising
the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of
Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995).
Elin Diamond,
ed., Performance and Cultural Politics (London and
New York: Routledge, 1996).
Andrew
Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, eds., Performativity
and Performance. London: Routledge,1995.
Peggy
Phelan and Jill Lane, eds., The Ends of Performance
(New York and London: New York University Press, 1998).
Richard
Schechner and Mady Schuman, eds., Ritual, Play, and Performance:
Readings in the Social Sciences/Theatre (New York: Seabury
Press, 1976).
Richard
Schechner and Willa Appel, eds., By Means of Performance:
Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990).*
Single-author
works:
J. L.
Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1962).
Judith
Butler. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of
‘Sex’ (New York: Routledge, 1993).*
____.
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
(New York: Routledge, 1990).*
RoseLee
Goldberg, Performance: live art since 1960 (New York:
Harry N. Abrams, 1998).
Baz Kershaw,
The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural
Intervention (London: Routledge, 1999).
Jon McKenzie,
Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance (New
York: Routledge, 2001).
Joseph
Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).*
Richard
Schechner, Performance Theory, revised and expanded
(New York: Routledge, 1998).*
____.
Between Theater and Anthropology (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1985).*
____.
The Future of Ritual (London and New York: Routledge,
1993).
I have
out the following books from O’Neill:
Sue-Ellen
Case, Philip Brett, and Susan Leigh Foster, eds., Cruising
the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of
Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995).
____,
eds. Decomposition: Post-Disciplinary Performance (Bloomington
and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2000).
Lynda
Hart and Peggy Phelan, eds., Acting Out: Feminist Performances
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993).
Anthony
Howell, The Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its
Theory and Practice (New York: Harwood, 1999).
José
Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers of Color
and the Performance of Politics (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1999).
Peggy
Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (Routledge:
London and New York, 1993).*
And I
have on my shelf two useful essay collections:
Lizbeth
Goodman with Jane de Gay, eds., The Routledge Reader in
Gender and Performance (New York: Routledge, 1998).
____,
eds., The Routledge Reader in Politics and Performance
(New York: Routledge, 2000).
Performance
Studies Journals (*not available in O’Neill Periodicals)
Since
performance studies is an emerging field, the best way to
see what’s current is to browse in the journals. I recommend:
The
Drama Review
Journal
of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
Modern
Drama (has occasional articles on performance)
Performance
Research: A Journal of Performing Arts
Performing
Arts Journal (PAJ)
Theater
(Yale)
Theatre
Journal
Theatre
Research International
Women
and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory
There
are also a number of websites devoted to performance art and
performance studies, including the Performance Studies International
(Psi) website at www.nyu.edu/pages/psi.
Happy hunting!
Tentatively
Revised Syllabus: "What is Performance?"
Warning:
This syllabus is liable to change at short notice. If you
miss a class, please check with a classmate about the assigned
readings for the next week.
I have
placed our PERFORMANCE TEXTS in bold; if the text is
a video text, please make arrangements to view it in Media
Services before class. Please complete all of the readings
by the date on which they are due; these are demanding, so
mark them up with questions, comments, ideas. Circle key passages
you wish to discuss in class.
Every
week I will expect a one-page, typed response to the week’s
reading; feel free to my discussion questions as a jumping-off
point.
Introduction
to Performance Studies
Jan 17 Introduction
to Course
Performance
and Anthropology I: From Ritual to Theatre
Jan 24 Readings:
Carlson,
"The performance of culture: Anthropological and ethnographic
approaches," in Performance: A Critical Introduction
(13-33)
Victor
Turner, "Are there universals of performance in myth,
ritual, and drama?" in By Means of Performance: Intercultural
studies of theatre and ritual, ed. Richard Schechner and
Willa Appel (8-19)
Richard
Schechner, "Magnitudes of Performance," in By
Means of Performance (19-49)
Discussion
questions: What connections do Turner and Schechner see between
ritual and performance? How useful is the idea of performance
"universals"?
Further
reading:
Richard
Schechner, "Restoration of Behavior," in Between
Theatre and Anthropology (35-116)
Victor
Turner, "Liminality and the Performative Genres,"
in Studies in Symbolism and Cultural Communication,
ed. F. Allan Hanson (25-41)
Performance
and Anthropology II: Ethnographies of Performance
Jan 31 Readings:
Clifford
Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,"
Daedaulus 101 (1972): 1-38
Joseph
Roach, "Mardi Gras Indians and Others: Genealogies of
American Performance," Theatre Journal 44 (1992):
461-83
Dwight
Conquergood, "Performance Theory, Hmong Shamans, and
Cultural Politics," in Critical Theory and Performance,
ed. Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach (41-64)
Discussion
questions: How effective is Geertz’s reading of the Balinese
cockfight as a cultural "text"? What assumptions
do these cultural ethnographers make about their subjects?
If you were to do an "ethnography of performance,"
what topic would you choose, and why?
Performance
and Sociology: Goffman, Eco, and the Semiotics of Everyday
Life
Feb 7 Readings
(presenter: John):
Carlson,
"Sociological and Psychological Approaches" (34-55)
Goffman,
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (excerpts
from The Goffman Reader): "Self-Presentation,"
"Social Life as Drama"
Goffman,
Frame Analysis (excerpts): "The Theatrical Frame"
Eco,
"Semiotics of Theatrical Performance," TDR
21 (1977): 107-17
Discussion
questions: How do Goffman and Eco distinguish theatrical performance
from "the performance of everyday life"? How useful
is Goffman’s terminology (framing, bracketing, keying,
etc.) for the analysis of cultural performances?
Further
reading:
Goffman,
Introduction to Frame Analysis: An essay on the Organization
of Experience (1-20)
Goffman,
The Goffman Reader (excerpts): "Social Life as
Ritual," "Social Life as Game"
Bateson,
"A Theory of Play and Fantasy," Steps to an Ecology
of Mind (177-93)
Feminist
Performances I: Theorizing the Politics of Representation
Feb 14 Readings
(presenter: Terry):
Laura
Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975),
in Feminism and Film, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (34-47)
Teresa
de Lauretis, "Sexual Indifference and Lesbian Representation,"
in Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre,
ed. Sue-Ellen Case (17-39)
Peggy
Phelan, "Feminist Theory, Poststructuralism, and Performance,"
TDR 32 (1988): 107-27
Griselda
Gambaro, Stripped (El Despojamiento)
Further
reading:
Elin Diamond,
"Mimesis, Mimicry, and the ‘True Real’"
Modern Drama 32 (1989): 58-72
Elaine
Aston, "Staging Feminism(s), An Introduction to Feminism
and Theatre (57-77)
Helene
Keyssar, Introduction to Feminist Theatre and Theory
(1-18)
Theresa
M. Senft, "Performing the Digital Body: A Ghost Story,"
Women & Performance 9 (1996): 9-33
Discussion
questions: What theoretical, political, or other assumptions
do these feminist theorists of performance hold in common?
Where do they disagree?
[Feminist
Performances II: Playwright Caryl Churchill
Readings
(presenter: Amy):
Caryl
Churchill, Cloud 9
Apollo
Amoko, "Casting Aside Colonial Occupation: Intersections
of Race, Sex, and Gender in Cloud 9 and Cloud 9
Criticism," Modern Drama 42 (1999): 45-58
John M.
Clum, "‘The Work of Culture’: Cloud 9
and Sex/Gender Theory," in Caryl Churchill: A Casebook,
ed. Phyllis R. Randall (91-116)
Janelle
Reinelt, "Feminist Theory and the Problem of Performance,"
Modern Drama 32 (1989): 48-54
Discussion
questions: How compelling do you find these scholars’
analysis of Cloud 9? What does it explain or fail to
explain? What still puzzles, disturbs, or intrigues you about
the play?]
Performing
Identities I: Performing Race/Performing Gender: Playwright
David Henry Hwang
Feb 21
Th Readings (presenter: Darlene):
David
Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly
James
Moy, "David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly and
Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die: Repositioning
Chinese-American Marginality on the American Stage,"
in Critical Theory and Performance (79-87)
Discussion
questions: What is Hwang’s analysis of the relationship
between racial, gender, and national "misidentifications"
in the play?
How
does his rejection of stage realism echo or complicate his
themes?
Performing
Identities II: Anna Deveare Smith
Feb 28
Th Readings (presenter: Sue):
Carol
Martin, "Anna Deveare Smith: The Word Becomes You,"
TDR 37 (1992): 45-62
Richards,
"Caught in the Act of Social Definition: On the Road
with Anna Deveare Smith," in Acting Out: Feminist
Performances, ed. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan (35-54)
Anna
Deaveare Smith, Fires in the Mirror
Discussion
questions: How would you describe what Smith does: acting,
performance, mimicry, parody? How effective are her techniques?
To what extent does she wish us to sympathize with her subjects?
Mar 7
Th SPRING VACATION
Performance
and Performativity I: Judith Butler and the Performative
Mar 14
Th Book Review Due
Readings
(presenter: Michelle):
Jonathan
Culler, "Performative Language," Literary Theory:
A Very Short Introduction (95-109)
Judith
Butler, "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An
Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory," in Performing
Feminisms (270-82)
Interview
with Judith Butler, Radical Philosophy 67 (1994).
Discussion
questions: What does Austin mean by "the performative?"
How does Butler apply this concept to gender constitution?
Is her argument convincing? How much room does Butler’s
theory leave for the subversion of gender norms?
Further
Reading:
J. L.
Austin, How To Do Things With Words
Jacques
Derrida, "Signature, Event, Context" in Limited
Inc.
Performance
and Performativity II: Queering Performance
Mar 21
Th Readings (presenter: Jess Landis):
Guest
speaker: Prof. Kevin Ohi on Suddenly Last Summer
Tennessee
Williams, Suddenly Last Summer–Play and Movie
Further
Reading:
Judith
Butler, "Critically Queer," GLQ 1 (1993):
17-32.
Andrew
Sofer, "Self-Consuming Artifacts: Power, Performance
and the Body in Suddenly Last Summer," Modern
Drama 38 (1995): 336-47.
Kevin
Ohi, "Devouring Creation: Cannibalism, Sodomy, and the
Scene of Analysis in Suddenly Last Summer," Cinema
Journal 38 (1999): 27-49.
Discussion
questions: What is meant by "queerness" and "queer
performativity"? Is Suddenly Last Summer a "queer"
play or movie? In what sense(s)?
Mar 28
Th HOLY THURSDAY–NO CLASS
Female
Body Performance Art
Apr 4
Th Screening: Sphinxes Without Secrets: Women Performance
Artists Speak Out (video)
Readings
(presenter: Kathy):
Peggy
Phelan, "The ontology of performance: representation
without reproduction," in Unmarked (146-68)
Rebecca
Schneider, "After Us the Savage Goddess," in Performance
and Cultural Politics, ed. Elin Diamond (155-76)
Jeanie
Forte, "Women’s Performance Art: Feminism and Postmodernism"
in Performing Feminisms (251-67)
Carr,
"Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts: The Taboo Art
of Karen Finley," in Acting Out: Feminist Performances
(141-52)
Karen
Finley, "The Constant State of Desire," in Out
from Under (55-71)
Karen
Finley, video
Discussion
questions: How do Phelan, Schneider, and Forte theorize female
performance art? Do their interpretations agree? Whose account
do you find most convincing, and why?
Performance
and Popular Culture: Analyzing Cultural Performances
Apr 11
Th Preliminary paper abstract due (topic, focus questions)
Readings
(presenter: Erich):
Vivian
Patraka, "Spectacles of Suffering: Performing Presence,
absence, and historical memory at U.S. Holocaust museums,"
in Performance and Cultural Politics (89-107)
Jeffrey
Tobin, "A Question of Balls: The Sexual Politics of Argentine
Soccer," in Decomposition: Post-Disciplinary Performance,
ed. Sue-Ellen Case, Philip Brett, and Susan Leigh Foster (111-34)
Discussion
questions: TBA
Apr 18
Th Discussion of Class field-trip/Catch-up class
Paper
abstract due with annotated bibliography
Apr 25
Th Student Presentations on Research Projects
Wrap-Up:
What is Performance?
May 2
Th Readings:
Marvin
Carlson, "What is Performance?"
Richard
Schechner, "What is Performance Studies Anyway?"
Final
Paper due–no extensions |
