Course Description
Performance and Culture is designed to
introduce students to a broadened idea of performance through exploration of
the performative dimensions of everyday experience. Working from that ground, students explore the performative
practices of peoples from diverse cultural traditions within the United States
(e.g., African American, Asian American, Mexican American, Native American,
Jewish) as well as performative events through which peoples establish,
continue, and/or redefine existing cultures (e.g., naming ceremonies,
religious holidays, rites of passage, memorials).
The overarching goal of the course is increased understanding and
appreciation of diversity and its cultural bases.
Course Objectives:
-
To understand how cultural
identity is constituted, documented, and preserved through artifacts,
texts, and events;
-
To develop a personal
inventory of the network of overlapping cultures which shape you as an
individual;
-
To use observation and
performance as methods for exploring, appreciating, and understanding how
cultural events, texts, and artifacts are systematically linked; and
-
To analyze and interpret the
values and ideologies embedded in cultural artifacts, texts, and events.
