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32301
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Lecture-Discussion
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F
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2:00PM
-2:50PM
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MWF
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Noyes Laboratory
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Newcomb, L
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- Part of Term:
- 1
- Date Range:
- 08/23/21-12/08/21
- Degree Notes:
- Humanities - Lit & Arts course.
- Section Info:
- English 218 Fall 2021 sections F and X, Prof. Lori Newcomb - Course description: We start with the insight that in Shakespeare’s lifetime (1564-1616), professional drama was a new form of entertainment in a new kind of venue, the commercial stage. Like many of today’s entertainment forms, plays were products of collaboration among playwrights, actors, and audiences. The plays, written as scripts for performance, were popular culture first and foremost, only later seen and taught as literature. Like other new forms of popular culture, plays created controversy. Because drama so vividly represented human faults, some authorities thought plays were immoral or even politically subversive. Today, the plays live doubly as both entertainment and heritage, allowing users to engage with recurring human dreams and nightmares, with harmony and tyranny, with disorder and with reconciliation. In part because of their hybrid origins, the plays give later interpreters unusual leeway for variation and reimagining. Societies in turmoil continue to find them powerful tools for communicating about difficult issues, helping us to reach from long cultural memories into the present. The important thing is to keep looking at them with fresh eyes. This semester, we’ll read 6-7 plays in depth (in print!) getting a sense of the linguistic freedom that makes them fantastic to read, their daring explorations of the period’s family, political, gender/sexual, religious and racial tensions, and their openness to reinterpretation today. We will try out various approaches to interpretation, making them hands-on whenever we can. Thus, when we consider the plays in performance, we’ll get on our feet and do a little (ungraded) performing, as well as looking at stage and film history. We’ll learn to close read the language of the plays, and later consider the printed play as itself a new technology. When we explore historicist and feminist, queer-studies, and anti-racist perspectives, I’ll bring you key nonfiction documents, too, to see how the plays engage their culture’s issues. Beyond the classroom, you’ll visit the Rare Book Library; attend and write an academic analysis of a live (if possible) theater production; and perform scenes in small groups. Plan to be armed with your books, proactive in questioning, and interactive in discussion. Written work includes some informal writings at first, one Production Analysis and one Scene Analysis, two focused short papers, a longer paper emerging from guided research (6-7 pp.), and a final exam. Required texts: Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays and Sonnets Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. Edition 3 e ISBN 9780393938630 W. W. Norton, 2015 American Moor By Keith Hamilton Cobb Paperback, first edition ISBN 9781350165304 Bloomsbury, 2020 The Renaissance: A Sourcebook Lena Cowen Orlin, ed. ISBN-13 : 978-0230001763 Palgrave, 2009
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|
|
32300
|
Lecture-Discussion
|
X
|
12:00PM
-12:50PM
|
MWF
|
Lincoln Hall
|
Newcomb, L
|
- Part of Term:
- 1
- Date Range:
- 08/23/21-12/08/21
- Degree Notes:
- Humanities - Lit & Arts course.
- Section Info:
- English 218 Fall 2021 sections F and X - Prof. Lori Newcomb - Course description: We start with the insight that in Shakespeare’s lifetime (1564-1616), professional drama was a new form of entertainment in a new kind of venue, the commercial stage. Like many of today’s entertainment forms, plays were products of collaboration among playwrights, actors, and audiences. The plays, written as scripts for performance, were popular culture first and foremost, only later seen and taught as literature. Like other new forms of popular culture, plays created controversy. Because drama so vividly represented human faults, some authorities thought plays were immoral or even politically subversive. Today, the plays live doubly as both entertainment and heritage, allowing users to engage with recurring human dreams and nightmares, with harmony and tyranny, with disorder and with reconciliation. In part because of their hybrid origins, the plays give later interpreters unusual leeway for variation and reimagining. Societies in turmoil continue to find them powerful tools for communicating about difficult issues, helping us to reach from long cultural memories into the present. The important thing is to keep looking at them with fresh eyes. This semester, we’ll read 6-7 plays in depth (in print!) getting a sense of the linguistic freedom that makes them fantastic to read, their daring explorations of the period’s family, political, gender/sexual, religious and racial tensions, and their openness to reinterpretation today. We will try out various approaches to interpretation, making them hands-on whenever we can. Thus, when we consider the plays in performance, we’ll get on our feet and do a little (ungraded) performing, as well as looking at stage and film history. We’ll learn to close read the language of the plays, and later consider the printed play as itself a new technology. When we explore historicist and feminist, queer-studies, and anti-racist perspectives, I’ll bring you key nonfiction documents, too, to see how the plays engage their culture’s issues. Beyond the classroom, you’ll visit the Rare Book Library; attend and write an academic analysis of a live (if possible) theater production; and perform scenes in small groups. Plan to be armed with your books, proactive in questioning, and interactive in discussion. Written work includes some informal writings at first, one Production Analysis and one Scene Analysis, two focused short papers, a longer paper emerging from guided research (6-7 pp.), and a final exam. Required texts: Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays and Sonnets Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. Edition 3 e ISBN 9780393938630 W. W. Norton, 2015 American Moor By Keith Hamilton Cobb Paperback, first edition ISBN 9781350165304 Bloomsbury, 2020 The Renaissance: A Sourcebook Lena Cowen Orlin, ed. ISBN-13 : 978-0230001763 Palgrave, 2009
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