THR 301, 302 - Feminist Theories of the Theatre

Course unit(s): 1
Meets requirement: W when offered as 302.
Prerequisite(s): THR 100 - Theatre & Society: An Historical Introduction or permission of instructor.
This course introduces students to the intellectual viewpoints, critiques, and new questions (and the new objects of study to match the new questions) that have arisen in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries’ feminist theories of the theatre. In order to move through the theoretical models employed by feminist critics in the theatre, we will begin with those key essays in film theory, semiotics, and materialist analysis that contributed to the current body of theoretical feminist material. By reading theories of reception and representation, of race and whiteness, and of unmaking mimesis, students will become familiar with analyses articulated by contemporary scholars. As objects of study upon which to practice these theoretical approaches, the class will read contemporary plays of feminist writers.