Performance as Political and Social Act

DESCRIPTION:
An investigation into the larger concept of performance and role-playing in daily life. Recent histories of civil disobedience, political protest strategies, and media theatre are examined. Individual acts in social space are viewed self-consciously as performance with political implications.

RATIONALE: 
The course offers students an understanding of the critical history of individual acts and a performance of the local. The course invites students to consider and appreciate the effects of their performances in daily life, and to see how creative principles of performance can be used to alter the social arena.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: 
As a result of taking this course, the student should be able to:
1. Identify frames of performance in daily life, by discerning the time, location, director/performer, and audience for the act.
2. Identify and analyze the performance role being played in daily acts
3. Analyse the value-context, and or ideological frame of the performance
4. Evaluate the performative significance of historical events and their actors in social and political theatre.
5. Combine the above concepts to consciously articulate acts of social performance relevant to the student’s personal and moral concerns

METHOD OF TEACHING AND LEARNING:
In congruence with the teaching and learning strategy of the college, the following tools are used:
- Classes consist of lectures, fieldtrips, and experiments, presentations of course-work and group discussions.
- Students will keep a journal of social observations
- Screening of videos relating to political performance
- Office hours: students are encouraged to make full use of the office hours of their instructor, where they can ask questions and go over lecture and reading material.
- Use of a blackboard site, where instructors post lecture notes, assignment instructions, timely announcements, as well as additional resources.