History Plays: From Conquest to Contemporary American Theatre

3 Credits

Investigates the braided relationship between American history, theatre, and race. In this course, students will destabilize their understandings of each of these three terms by exploring them from two vantage points: from the point of view of historic American plays, and from the vantage of contemporary American "history plays" -- plays that draw on America's past to rewrite its future. Using the lens of Omi & Winant's theory of racial projects, students will explore how theatrical performances of racial difference from 1600 to 1900 were instrumental in crafting American ideologies, identities, and the nation state itself. The class will then telegraph through history to consider each historical play in dialogue with a contemporary "history play." Theatre 290 intentionally pivots between the past and present, page and stage, the political arena and the public sphere in order to demonstrate how America, theatre, and race consistently make and remake one another. The class emphasizes intersectional theories of race, and considers race alongside categories of gender and (dis)ability.