GSFS 353 - Radical “I”: Queer and Feminist Performance of the First Person Voice

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
In this course, students will be creating performances to explore the first person voice using the critical lenses of feminism and queer studies. This course invites students to better understand feminist and queer theory through embodied practice, movement, performance, and critical reflection and thus requires a strong commitment to preparation, rehearsal, and public presentation. Possible performance mediums include oral interpretation of literature, ethnographic performance, autoethnographic performance, performance art, site-specific performance, storytelling, spoken word, and performance as protest. As students consider the feminist first person in a variety of theoretical and literary texts including fiction, poetry, oral history, essay, and personal narrative, our analysis will be guided by some of the following interrelated questions: How is voice shaped by cultural, social, and material forces such as gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.? In turn, how does voice manifest identity, subjectivity, solidarity, and “soul”? And lastly, what are the connections among gender, sexuality, voice, physicality, and embodiment? Authors may include Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Linda Martín Alcoff, among others. Open to all students; first-time performers are welcome and encouraged to enroll.