Performing Power

Social power is embedded in our identities, our bodies, and our performances of self. We will read about the intersectionality and performance of power in race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation. Texts will come from critical race and gender theorists (bell hooks, Judith Butler and Robin Bernstein), performance studies (Erving Goffman, Victor Turner, Richard Schechner, and Charlotte Canning), and 20th/21st century artists and critics (Richard Pryor, Aasif Mandvi, Peggy Shaw, and James Howard Kunstler). We will use the readings as a basis for the creation of multi-media pieces about the performance of power and the power of performance.