Black Performance Theory

This interdisciplinary, reading/writing-intensive course examines the notion of blackness through theorizations of performance. It pursues the following questions: What is black authenticity? What are the rubrics with which 'authentic' blackness is measured? How is black performance political? Discussions and written work will interrogate the slipperiness of, desire for, and policing of blackness in order to trouble conceptions of race as a biological essence.