teaching

FTT/LLEA/ASIA 40032 Politics and Performance in Modern China

Course Description: Politics has always been theatrical. Rhetoric and oratory shaped the civic spheres of ancient Greece and Rome. European monarchs and Chinese emperors alike staged elaborate court pageants for visiting dignitaries. In the US today, politicians constantly perform for their constituents on camera and on social media. But perhaps nowhere has the use of performance for political ends and the theatricality of politics been taken to such an extreme as in modern China. From the celebrity-like “cult of personality” surrounding Chairman Mao Zedong to massive student protests to impressive performances like the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China has been home to some of the most spectacular political displays of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. 

But how and why did political performance become such a prominent phenomenon in China, especially under the People’s Republic (PRC)? This course will explore this question through two main lines of inquiry: First, it will examine how theatre and performance themselves have been used as political tools in modern China, both in support of and in protest against ruling regimes. Second, it will look at the ways in which political events such as mass rallies, show trials, and protests have taken on highly performative and theatrical qualities in the Chinese context. It will consider cases that relate directly to state and Party politics, as well as to the politics of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Through this course, students will gain a deeper understanding of modern Chinese performance, politics, and history, as well as the critical and theoretical tools necessary to analyze political theatre and theatrical politics in China and beyond.  

FTT/ENG/LLEA/ASIA 40130 Shakespeare and Asia (co-taught with Prof. Peter Holland)

Course Description: Since the nineteenth century, Asian theatre artists and filmmakers have produced some of the most innovative and well-received adaptations of the work of William Shakespeare. At the same time, Shakespeare’s strong presence in Asia also speaks to the histories and legacies of colonization and cultural imperialism. This course asks students to reconsider the meaning of “Shakespeare” in light of the circulation, adaptation, and appropriation of his plays and their productions. It will explore several well-known Shakespearean plays through the lens of Asian adaptation, rooted in both close reading of the plays themselves and the historical-cultural contexts of their adaptations. How, when, and why have specific Shakespearean plays captured the imaginations of Asian theatre artists and filmmakers? How have they transformed Shakepearean texts through translation, the use of local performance forms, new geographic and historical settings, and other techniques? How have the themes, aesthetics, and politics of these adaptations resonated with audiences? How do these reimaginings rethink what “Shakespeare” might mean? Are such appropriations a redefinition of Shakespeare as a colonizing force? By exploring these questions, students will gain a deeper understanding of Shakespeare, Asian theatre, and the complexities of their conjoining. 

FTT 40017/LLEA 40614/ASIA40017 Spectacular Asia

Course Description: From martial arts blockbusters to extravagant expos to space-age cityscapes, countries in East and Southeast Asia have achieved worldwide renown both for their affinity for mega-events and as spectacular backdrops for filmed narratives, multinational gatherings, and global tourism. Most recently, the “quarantine theatre” of the COVID-19 pandemic and controversy over face masks has drawn a new round of attention to countries and cultures in East Asia. But what forces are at work in the creation and dissemination of such spectacle? To what ends and for whom are these spectacles designed? How do different spectators interact with and interpret them? And what resistance, if any, has there been to the seeming excess and superficiality of extravaganza and its attendant mass-mediated images?

This course examines recent works of performance, visual art, and film from China, Taiwan, Japan, the Koreas, and Singapore in relation to the politics of spectatorship and theories of spectacle. Covering a period roughly from the mid-20^th century rise of the “society of the spectacle” to the present, we will ask how different forms of spectacle—still and moving, mediated and live—come to represent Asian nations and shape viewers’ experiences of Asian cultures. Doing so will enable us to better understand the dynamics of seeing and being seen on a global scale, as well as to explore how alternative modes of performance, visual culture, and viewership engendered by Asian contexts challenge established power hierarchies and modes of audience engagement.  

FTT 13182 (University Seminar) From Broadway to Beijing: Musical Theatre & East Asia

Characters in Disney’s The Lion King singing in Mandarin. A K-pop idol starring in a Broadway-style adaptation of a story about Korean pansori singers. Memories of Japanese American internment restaged in George Takei’s Allegiance. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the Broadway-style musical has become what theatre scholar David Savran calls a “worldwide theatrical lingua franca,” while the original Great White Way has struggled to diversify its offerings and spotlight more Asian and Asian-American artists. This course will explore the richness and complexity of contemporary “East Asian musical theatre” through three main topics: representations of Asia and Asian-American experience in U.S. musical theatre; local traditions of sung drama in China, Japan, and South Korea; and the growing trend of international tours and Broadway-style productions in the East Asian region. How do our current politics of representation challenge long histories of exoticization? How do traditional musical theatre forms compete or combine with a newer, international idiom? And how do theatre artists navigate the tensions between audience interest and the dangers of capitalist cultural imperialism? Through this course, students will gain a deeper understanding of musical theatre genres, how the musical industry operates across cultural contexts, and how the theatre of jazz hands, high kicks, and power ballads successfully transformed itself into a global phenomenon.    

FTT 30714 World Theaters I: Texts and Performance across Cultures

Course Description: World Theatre I examines theatre history from the origins of performance to the 18^th century. Throughout, the course emphasizes the importance of cultural context and historiography to understanding the creation and transformation of theatre as an art form. Students learn techniques of script analysis, performance analysis, and independent research as tools for analyzing theatre from literary, aesthetic, and historical perspectives. FTT majors acquire knowledge and skills that will inform and support their choices as artists, while other students gain an informed understanding and appreciation of theatre as audience members and future patrons of the arts. This course is discussion oriented with mandatory attendance.

The course follows a chronological sequence that introduces major canonical works of world theatre and situates them within historical, geographic, and cultural contexts. At the same time, we also examine modern and contemporary pieces that adapt or draw inspiration from that canon. The latter demonstrate the diverse ways in which the theatre continually alludes to, reinvents, critiques, and queers its own history, as well as reveal more problematic cases of appropriation. Such cases enable us to investigate how cultural biases and power hierarchies affect literary composition and creative practice, as well as how defamiliarization and adaptation can function as tactics of resistance. Through this course, you will practice multiple ways of seeing, thinking about, and responding to theatre, gain a global perspective on the development of theatre and drama, and ponder the role of the past in the arts of the present.

FTT 30706 Musical Theatre History

Course Description: The American musical, with its roots in the minstrel show, is America’s one truly indigenous dramatic genre. Often considered merely frivolous entertainment, the musical has nevertheless always served a critical social function. This course examines the musical theatre both as an industry and as a site of aesthetic debate and political and social change. Students will acquire historical, theoretical, and critical knowledge both to inform and to support their choices as artists.