Advanced Topics in Arts and Performance (380-0-1)

Topic

Asian/Black Connections in U.S. Theatre & Performa

Instructors

Elizabeth W Son
847/467-0513
70 Arts Circle Drive, 5th floor, room #174
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1-3pm

Meeting Info

Wirtz 235 Seminar Room: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

This course examines performances by and about Asian Americans and Black Americans in order to understand an interconnected history of race and racism in the United States from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. We will explore the production and contestation of racialized meanings—how bodies are marked and redefined as "Asian," "oriental," "Black," "other," "Asian American," and "Black American." In other words, we will study the construction of race through performance on stage and in everyday life. The course covers a range of performances or embodied practices, including museum and fair displays, exhibitions, minstrelsy, cabaret performances, theatre, martial arts, hip hop, and activism.

Our investigations will be guided by these questions: How are bodies racialized through performance? How do theatre and performance in general illuminate how bodies acquire cultural meaning? What does it mean for a body to be marked Asian or Black? How do negotiations of racialization impact subjects' experiences of identity, place, community, and belonging? How can performances offer the possibilities for resistance and critique? What kinds of political and cultural connections are shared by Asian Americans and Black Americans?

The course begins in the nineteenth century with a comparative study of embodied negotiations of race and racism in public exhibits of Asian and Black bodies, and in blackface and yellowface performances. The course then examines cross-racial influences and alliances in popular performance, martial arts, hip hop, and activism in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The course concludes by exploring contemporary theatrical representations of Asian/Black relationships. In addition to dramatic texts, we will read key works in Asian American and Black American history and cultural studies, along with readings in critical race theory and performance theory.

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Registration is reserved to all ASIAN_AM students until the end of preregistration, after which registration will be open to all who meet the prerequisites.