Course description::
Students taking this course will examine the different ways that anthropologists have used concepts of performance for understanding cultural phenomena such as theatre, dance and ritual, as well as for analyzing everyday interactions. We will look at ‘performances’ as events and engage with theorists such as Victor Turner, Milton Singer and Richard Schechner that see ritual and the performing arts as similar kinds of activities, both commenting upon and constituting social relations. We will also consider performance as a mode of action, and the way that everything from large-scale spectacles to everyday interactions take account of audiences to re-affirm or question our identities. Here we will study theorists that range from Erving Goffman to Judith Butler. During the course we will discuss the different ways that performance terminologies have entered anthropology from the performing arts, linguistics and semiotics and examine critically these different perspectives. The course will encourage students to think about performance as fundamental to the way that humans present themselves to one another, make collective meanings, feel a sense of belonging, and reflect and create identities that range from gender, kinship and ethnicity to professional or familial roles.
