GSFS 309 - Performing America

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
What does it mean to be American? How do we conceive of the geographical, political, national, and social spaces that constitute “America” or “the Americas”? This course will enter into these questions via an engagement with performance theory, adopting an expansive notion of “performance” to investigate what it means to perform and critique Americanness. Examining histories of rite and ritual, transatlantic funerary performance, protest, field performances by migrant laborers, digital media, and staged performances that engage with how gender, race, class, sexuality, and immigration status inform one’s sense of America, we will explore how performance transmits knowledge and contributes to worldmaking practices that shape identity, nation, and politics.
This course is cross-listed with CAST 309