DRAMA 494 A: Special Studies in Theatre and Drama

Performing Social Justice

Winter 2022

Professors Jasmine Mahmoud and Nikki Yeboah

What are the stakes of engaging histories and practices of social justice through performance and artmaking? How does an attention to narrative and the body animate social movements? The objective of the course is to engage social justice through performance and artmaking. In particular, this class leads students through three units (Unit I: theorizing/understanding performance and social justice; Unit II: scripting and rehearsing social justice; and Unit III: Staging, Intervening in, and Imagining New Worlds) to understand various genres of performance, and the ways in which performance is tactically mobilized in social justice movements. Genres of study include theater, performance art, and dance. Topics of study include abolition, race and racism, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, decoloniality, disability, and protest. No prior theater, performance, or artistic experience is required to succeed in this course.

Find a link to the "hard copy" syllabus here.