Techniques of the Liar: Performance, Artifice, Fraud
CHUM 306
Spring 2022 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
FGSS 305, THEA 306 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate, Queer Studies |
This seminar is a cultural and intellectual history of fraudulence, fiction, and faking it. We will explore both specific performance practices as well as theorizations of artifice, fraud, and authenticity. Topics will include illusion, ventriloquism, and sleight of hand; mimetic acting and the manufacture of "emotion"; dance technique and the concealment of effort; and musical improvisation and the politics of invention. We will also consider the complexities of drag, camp, and minstrelsy and historicize their surrounding discourses, centering the contributions of feminist, queer, and critical race studies. Looking at a range of (predominantly U.S.-based) practices from the mid-19th century to the present, we will consider how artifice and theatricality have been historically reviled as qualities inherent to femininity and queerness, respectively; how "authenticity" is both gendered and racialized; and how hiding, fabulation, exaggeration, and duplicity have also offered means of freedom or resistance. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Daphne Brooks, BODIES IN DISSENT: SPECTACULAR PERFORMANCES OF RACE AND FREEDOM, 1850-1910; Rebecca Schneider, PERFORMING REMAINS: ART AND WAR IN TIMES OF THEATRICAL REENACTMENT; Karen Beckman, VANISHING WOMEN: MAGIC, FILM, AND FEMINISM; Kevin Young, BUNK: THE RISE OF HOAXES, HUMBUG, PLAGIARISTS, PHONIES, POST-FACTS, AND FAKE NEWS; Jose Esteban Munoz, CRUISING UTOPIA: THE THEN AND THERE OF QUEER FUTURITY
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Examinations and Assignments:
Assignments include guiding our discussion of readings 2-3x over the course of the semester, a peer editing assignment, a brief final presentation, and a final paper (12-15 pp). |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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