Seminar: Problems in Performance Studies (515-0-21)

Instructors

Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson

Meeting Info

AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Mon 2:00PM - 5:00PM

Overview of class

The ephemeral, itinerant nature of queer and minoritarian performance raises significant questions regarding research methods: How does one study an aesthetic form that is always slipping away from grasp? How does (and should) one research performance cultures and communities that have been excluded from, or actively avoid capture within, institutional and imperial archives? Does performance stand opposed to and against the archive and/or in what ways do archives perform? With visits to archives (NU Special Collections and the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago) and other institutional holdings (the Block Museum), this course will train students in experimental approaches to, and critiques of, method. Authors studied may include Lisa Lowe, Diana Taylor, Saidiya Hartman, Jodi Byrd, José Esteban Muñoz, Alexandra Vazquez, Daphne Brooks, Tavia Nyong'o, D. Soyini Madison, and Jennifer Doyle.