Performance Criticism

Communication Studies 5360

Course Description

Literary theorists have argued endlessly about what texts mean (as if any text had a single, determinable meaning).  This course focuses on a different question:  How to texts mean?  The overarching goal for Performance Criticism is summarized by Robert Scholes in Textual Power, a text used in the course:

I would argue that practice is never natural or neutral; there is always a theory in place, so that the first job of any teacher of criticism is to bring the assumptions that are in place out in the open for scrutiny. (xi) 

Over the course of the semester, students will pursue the following objectives to achieve that goal:

• To examine literary theories from the late 19^th century through the 20^th century;

• To understand the evolution of literary theories and, hence, literary criticism;

• To understand the underlying assumptions of these theories;

• To understand the social and historical contexts that gave rise to different schools of literary theory and criticism; and, most importantly,

• To understand the impact of these theories on the practice of interpretation and performance studies.

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