University of Toronto at Mississauga DRE347F2018
Studies in Theatre and Drama Studies: Performance and Popular Culture
Instructor: Stephen Johnson; Office: DH1049; Email: stephen.johnson@utoronto.ca
Teaching Assistant: Sarah Robbins; DH1049Email: sarah.robbins@mail.utoronto.ca
Class: Wednesdays, 1:10pm to 3:00pm, in Deerfield Hall 1070, Rehearsal Hall B
Website: Site still under construction. https://perfpopculture.wordpress.com
All information in this syllabus, and much more, will be posted on this site.
This website has everything you require for this course.
Communication will be through email at the above addresses.
Course Description:
This course will examine performance practice in popular culture, drawing examples in particular from the traditions of Western European ‘show business’ (such as burlesque, puppetry, and the blackface minstrel show), related performance idioms (such as drag), and non-traditional performance spaces (the streets, the museum, the fairground). The course will examine popular performance in both its historical setting, and in its contemporary legacies and revivals. Issues of race, gender, class, and physical and cultural diversity will be foregrounded in all discussion. Guest scholar/artists will be invited to most of the classes for interviews/presentations. All students will be involved in explorations and engagement with classroom guests, for one or more of these forms. An exploration of individual cultural traditions and interests will be welcomed. On-line and web-based reading and research are a part of this course.
Selected Major Readings:
All readings will be provided in excerpt or by link on the course website. All will comply with appropriate copyright and permissions for fair use in an educational environment. The emphasis in this seminar will be on primary documents, read through the ‘lens’ of all/any secondary reading students may have done, at university and elsewhere.
Method of Instruction:
In-class presentation-discussions and interviews, on-line reading and research, out-of-class supervised preparation of a research essay. Emphasis will be placed on the participation of students as ‘resident authorities’ during selected classes.
Know your Instructor Better:
Because it might help, here is my professional website:
https://sbjohnson.wordpress.com
And here are links to the main projects I am working on that may relate to this course:
An old site that may be useful: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3minstr/
A database project under development: https://canadawest.library.utoronto.ca
A new site and project, under development: https://www.theatredocs.org
No doubt I’ll be bringing my own interests into the classroom, which is entirely appropriate for a topics course. It is just as appropriate that you do the same.
Method of Evaluation:
The First Four Weeks–3 Written Assignments: 20%
The Next Eight Weeks–Resident Authority Assignment: 30%
Overall Participation/’Attendance’: 20%
Final Essay: 30%
Explanation of Assignments:
The First Four Weeks–Three Written Assignments: 20%
The first four weeks of this course, before our ‘Reading Week,’ will provide preparation and introduction to a more discursive and open-ended class format, with interviews, for the balance of the term. You are required to write three 500-word journal-style responses during this time, due the Monday after the second, third, and fourth class.
Length: minimum 500 words, maximum 750 words.
Format: Prose, but this should be a response to aspects of the week’s subject, class and discussion. You will most likely focus in on one or two aspects of the week’s work; further instructions will be included on the webpage for each week.
Due: The Monday after the appropriate class, by midnight. I ask this so that Sarah and I can take a look at them before the next class.
Grading and Return: These three assignments will be returned together, after Reading Week. Brief comments will be provided on-going, to ensure that you are providing ‘good copy.’
Note: If you have difficulties with this assignment, we can discuss writing additional submissions to improve your grade.
The Next Eight Weeks–Resident Authority Assignment: 30%
During the first four weeks, we will assign you to a class after Reading Week for which you will serve as ‘Resident Authority,’ which only means that you will be ‘more than usually prepared’ to be involved in that performance (I mean…that class). Readings will be provided, but you will no doubt look further, and spend more time with any posted materials. There will be a number of you assigned for each week, and we want to make clear that this is not a seminar presentation. We want you to do three things, none of them unusual, all of them…useful, we believe:
- There will always be another ‘Resident Authority’ present, usually a guest ‘authority’ or two. This guest is not there to lecture formally, but to speak informally, to be interviewed, to be engaged in conversation, to provide information and expertise. It is the task of the Resident Authorities (along with Sarah and myself, of course) to ensure that we get the most out of these opportunities. That’s the job.
- After the break in each class, we will go in the other direction. ‘Resident Authorities’ (you) should bring to class examples from your own lives and experiences, and knowledge of the present state of popular culture that resonates with you, with respect to the subject for the class.
Note about 1 and 2: To be clear, no one is going to make you speak, or count the words you say. Be prepared to improvise, and the class will go where it will go. The ‘grade’ will be in part for 1 and 2, and in part for what follows (3).
- Whatever happens in class, your final task is to write an essay/report for this subject, based on reading, viewing, research, what happens in the classroom, due the Monday after the class, and of no less than 1,000 words, and no more than 1,500.
Note: The final grade for this Assignment will balance its three parts, and take into account the nature of the discussion. In some cases discussion and interview go well, and the essay is less important–or vice versa. All students can ask for a review if there is any doubt about the grade.
Overall Participation: 20%
You will note that, after Reading Week, for fully eight classes, you will only be ‘officially’ graded for one major assignment. An ‘Overall Participation’ grade compensates for that by assessing your role in class overall. This includes ‘attendance,’ though we consider this a verb, not a noun. You have colleagues involved in every class–you can help them to do better by keeping the energy level up. And yes, we acknowledge that we can’t be brilliant every week (or even…present).
Final Essay: 30%
Everything organized around the classroom work is, for the most part, set by others. This final assignment is an opportunity for you to pursue a project that meets your needs and your interests, within the parameters of the course. If there is a kind of performance you know well, or want to know better, or that you believe you will in some measure pursue in your career, or that is from a part of your life and culture that you have not been able to explore–then this is an opportunity for you to learn more.
Length: Minimum 1,500 words, Maximum 2,000 words.
Format: Formal Essay (but we can discuss this).
Research Basis: Microhistory; Performance Ethnography; Interview. All will be discussed in class, along with essential essay writing.
Due Dates: A preliminary statement of 150 words is due on Halloween. The final essay is due after classes end, on December 10. I only name that date because I’m forced to by university regulations.
Booking Assignments Now; and about ‘Hell Weeks’:
You will note that there is considerable flexibility in the schedule for your own involvement in a class. But this also requires planning at our earliest opportunity.
For this reason, please send an email to Sarah by the end of the second week of classes. Two pieces of information are needed:
–the subjects listed that would be of particular interest to you. If you don’t have a preference, I’d still like you to say so. And the more ‘subjects’ that interest you, the better for the schedule.
–two weeks that you would really rather not be a ‘resident authority,’ because of your own scheduling. These can be weeks when you know there are a number of other assignments due, or tests scheduled. More likely, these will be when you have a tech week and show run.
I do not wish to overburden you during exceptionally stressful moments in the term, and I will make every effort to schedule accordingly. I will also try to assign you a subject you express prior interest in. I cannot guarantee that I will succeed, because the demands of the course may prevent me; final decisions on assignments and due dates will be mine.
If you do not respond with your preferences for topics and dates by the deadline, I will assume that you will be pleased to go any time, and will schedule accordingly.
Provided you express your preferences, then if a problem arises that prevents you from participating as assigned, do not hesitate to email Sarah with a request to change. We will do our best to accommodate. Your obligation is to contact me at the first sign of a problem, and not wait until just before the class–unless, of course, that is when the problem arises. Let reason prevail.
About Due Dates and Late Assignments:
Deadline for requesting special consideration: 24 hours prior to the deadline
Method for requesting consideration: Email
Supporting Documentation: A personal statement is sufficient
‘Penalty’ for Lateness: 10% per ‘business/week’ day
Last date to submit all coursework: Dec 10, 2018, end of the day.
Drop Date for the Course: November 8, 2018
All students will have received a minimum 25% of the final grade by this date.
Note on Academic Integrity: (see the course website as well)
Failing to properly cite your sources—and any other method of presenting another person’s work as your work—is plagiarism. Plagiarism has serious consequences at the University of Toronto. If you are ever unsure about questions of academic honesty, consult with me. In the meantime, there is also an excellent guide to avoiding plagiarism available here: http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize/
SCHEDULE FOR THE CLASSROOM
September 12: Introductions and Definitions
[No assignment between Weeks One and Two]
September 19: A Complete ‘Structural’ History of ‘The Show Business’ in Two Hours
[Assignment for all due Monday September 24, 11:59pm]
September 26: Research Methods and Popular Performance, Part One:
Performance Ethnographies (the Elvis Festival; the Psychic Fair)
Oral Histories and Interviewing (…the Instructor)
[Assignment for all due Monday October 1, 11:59pm]
[Resident Authority Preferences and ‘Hell Weeks’ due Wednesday September 26, 11:59pm, to Sarah Robbins]
October 3: Research Methods and Popular Performance, Part Two: Microhistories
Underbelly and Origins of Popular Performance: Blackface Minstrelsy
[Assignment for all due Monday October 8, 11:59pm]
October 10: Reading Week
NOTE: Though what follows Reading Week is scheduled, all visitors to class confirmed, we may need to adjust the subject matter and the order to accommodate guests, and in a rare case, the ‘guest,’ because everyone else’s life is as busy as our lives are. As soon as we know about any change, you will know. If there is a change and you have been assigned as a Resident Authority for that week, you will be asked to make a choice as to which is more important to you–the date or the subject. I will have to make the final decision, but we will do so sympathetically.
The Schedule of classes and assignments:
October 17: Cameron Crookston on Drag; or, RuPaul and His Discontents
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday October 22, 11:59pm]
October 24: Julia Matias and Jessica Thorp on the Radical Re-Construction of Burlesque
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday October 19, 11:59pm]
October 31: Christine Mazumdar on Gymnastics, Acrobatics, and Art
[Preliminary Statement of Purpose for your Final Essay due by 11:59pm]
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday November 5, 11:59pm]
[Metamorphosis opens 1 November]
November 7: Seika Boye, on Social Dance and Race in Toronto
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday November 12, 11:59pm]
[Henry IV, Part 2 opens 8 November]
November 14: Mark Turner on Inuit Traditions and Colonial-Indigenous Hybrid Culture
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday September 19, 11:59pm]
[Henry IV, Part 2 continues 15 November]
November 21: Gabriel Levine on Contemporary Traditions of Puppetry
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday November 26, 11:59pm]
November 28: Natalie Alvarez on Radical Tourism
[Resident Authority Assignment for some due Monday December 3, 11:59pm]
[TDS Showcases run 30 November 3-6pm]
December 5: Final Class — TBA, no assignments. We will wrap it up.
Final Essay Due: December 10, 2018, 11:59pm
Performance and Popular Culture 