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Topics in Performance Studies (330-0-30)

Topic

Disturbance, Disaster, Perspectives on Abrupt Chan

Instructors

Gregory Donald Manuel

Meeting Info

AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This course is available for undergraduate students only. Graduate students may not register for this course. This course will track tactics and methods through which humans and nonhumans navigate quick moments of drastic social and environmental change. Placing theories of ecological disturbance in conversation with writings on events in the social sciences and humanities, we will ask: How do plants, animals, states, corporations, and activists variously navigate opportunities and hazards wrought by momentary upheavals? And what does it mean to conduct research and create art amid conditions of deep uncertainty and flux? The course will examine scholarly and aesthetic works addressing abrupt crises and disruptions across a range of scales — including networked protests, fires, storms, infrastructural breakdowns, and, especially, global climate change. Students will hone close reading and listening skills through analyzing multiple kinds of media, including fiction, performance, photography, and video, and will gain practice theorizing and communicating about events and places drawn from their own areas of interest.