Annotation
Course Description:
The multimodality of the body as a phenomenon and a theoretical construct has raised a variety of questions ranging from Cartesian dualism to Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of “being-with” (être-avec), which challenges the traditional dualism of mind and body. Nancy posits a state of “being-with-others,” where the body is not a discrete, autonomous entity, but rather a site of intersubjective engagement and shared experience. Theatre as a body-contingent art produces its own theories of the body that have evolved from emphasizing verisimilitude of complex stories and histories and participating in citational practices to questioning the presentation and representation of the body on stage.
In this light, the course explores the intricate relationship between the body and a range of critical discourses: mind, mental illness, ageing, trauma, gender, labour, politics, and race. The plays by Alice Birch, Annie Baker, Lucy Kirkwood, Duncan Macmillan, Lucy Prebble, Dan O’Brien seek to engage the students with examining how the body becomes a space of multiple and simultaneous inscriptions through several discourses. Each thematic session can be potentially addressed from various perspectives, hence contributing to understanding how theatre deals with the body inscribed by and functioning within the social, environmental, and political scripts.
Students are expected to deliver two in-class presentations on the plays from two different sessions. Engaging in critical reflection on the play and applicable critical theory(ies), each presentation will have a title, pose a research question and provide a brief literature review related to the research question, the presenter’s argument supported by textual analysis, and a critical conclusion. As a learning outcome used for evaluation and grading, the quality of the presentation will be reflected upon in detailed feedback.
Syllabus:
Week 1 Feb 20, 2025: Introduction
• Body in theatre and performance art
• Overview of plays, themes and secondary sources
Week 2 Feb 27, 2025: Body and Mind
• Sharr White, The Other Place (2011)
• Tanika Gupta, Mind Walking (2011)
Week 3 Mar 06, 2025: Body and Mental Illness
• Alice Birch, Anatomy of Suicide (2017)
• Anthony Neilson, The Wonderful World of Dissocia (2004, 2022)
Week 4 Mar 13, 2025: Body and Ageing
• Kevin Kautzman, Dream of Perfect Sleep (2014)
• Lucy Kirkwood, The Children (2016)
Week 5 Mar 20, 2025: Body in Pain and the (Medical) Gaze
• Duncan Macmillan, People, Places & Things (2015)
• Lucy Prebble, The Effect (2012)
Week 6 Mar 27, 2025: Body and Trauma
• Dan O’Brien, The Body of an American (2014)
• Natasha Gordon, Nine Night (2018)
Week 7 Apr 03, 2025: Body and Language
• Annie Baker, Body Awareness (2008)
Week 8 Apr 10, 2025: Body and Economic Hardship
• Annie Baker, The Flick (2013)
• Stephen Karam, The Humans (2016)
Week 9 Apr 17, 2025: Body, Race and Gender
• Paul Lucas, Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women (2019)
• Lynn Nottage, Sweat (2017)
Week 10 Apr 24, 2025: Body Politic in Performance
• Tania Bruguera Tatlin’s Whisper #5 (2007), Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7L1s_GWn3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CThPLk-hR1w
• Tania Bruguera The Francis Effect (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dMFIIPhmPA
• Tania Bruguera, Manifesto on Artists’ Rights.
• Mona Hatoum Remains of the Day (2018), Nail Necklace (2018), Hair Grids with Knots (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hoaUqy8sGY
Week 11 May 15, 2025: Body and Technology
• Jennifer Haley, The Nether (2014)
• (optional) Hito Steyerl, How Not To Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE3RlrVEyuo, Factory of the Sun (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zBGoSqq-gA https://www.moma.org/collection/works/181784
Week 12 May 22, 2025: Conclusion
• Reflections on the course themes
Primary Sources:
Baker, Annie. Body Awareness. Atlantic Theatre Company, 2008.
Baker, Annie. The Flick. 2013.
Birch, Alice. Anatomy of Suicide. London, New York, Dublin: Methuen Drama, 2021. Gordon, Natasha. Nine Night. NHB, 2018.
Gupta, Tanika. Mind Walking. London: Oberon Books, 2013.
Haley, Jennifer. The Nether. Evanston: Northeastern University Press, 2015.
Karam, Stephen. The Humans. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2016.
Kautzman, Kevin. Dream of Perfect Sleep. London: Oberon Books, 2014.
Kirkwood, Lucy. The Children. NHB, 2016.
Lucas, Paul. Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women. Samuel French, 2019.
Macmillan, Duncan. People, Places & Things. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2017.
Neilson, Anthony. The Wonderful World of Dissocia. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014
Nottage, Lynn. Sweat. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2017.
O’Brien, Dan. The Body of an American. Gate Theatre and Royal & Derngate Northampton’s Underground Studio, 2014.
Prebble, Lucy. The Effect. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012
Steyerl, Hito. The Wretched of the Screen. Sternberg Press.
White, Sharr. The Other Place. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2011.
Secondary Sources:
A Critical Companion to Lynn Nottage. Eds. Jocelyn L. Buckner. London, New York: Routledge, 2016.
Adiseshiah, Stan.“Ageing as Crisis on the Twenty-first Century British Stage” in Crisis, Representation and Resilience. eds., Clare Wallace, Clara Escoda, Enric Monforte, Jose Ramon Prado-Perez. Methuen Drama, 2022.
Anatomy Live. Performance and the Operating Theatre. ed. Maaike Bleeker. Amsterdam UP, 2008
Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. Routledge 2023.
Bruguera, Tania. “Manifesto on Artists’ Rights.” Expert Meeting on Artistic Freedom and Cultural Rights. United Nations Organization Geneva, December 6, 2012.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York & London: Routledge, 1990.
Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York & London: Routledge, 1993.
Catherine Bernard. “Bodies and Digital Utopia.” Art Journal, 59(4), (2000), 26–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2000.10792028
Colbert, Soyica Diggs. Theory for Theatre Studies: Bodies. Methuen Drama, 2021.
Dan O'Brien on the Origins of The Body Of an American https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr66CLr4x0
Diamond, Sara (1987) Performance: And interview with Mona Hatoum. Fuse Magazine, 10 (5). pp. 46-52. ISSN 0838-603X Available at http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/1792/
Hammami, Rema. “Precarious Politics: The Activism of “Bodies that Count” (Aligning with those that Don’t) in Palestine’s Colonial Frontier” in Vulnerability in Resistance. eds., Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, Leticia Sabsay. DUP, 2016.
Haughton, Miriam. Staging Trauma. Bodies in Shadow. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Jones, A. (2001). The Body and Technology. Art Journal, 60(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2001.10792043
A talk with Sharr White. Dementia Takes The Stage In ‘The Other Place.’ https://www.npr.org/2013/01/18/169708759/dementia-takes-the-stage-in-the-other-place
Lipscomb, Valerie Barnes. Performing Age in Modern Drama. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Mansoor, Jaleh. ”A Spectral Universality: Mona Hatoum’s Biopolitics of Abstraction.” October 133, Summer 2010, pp. 49–74.
Mitchell, W.J.T. “How to Make Art with a Jackhammer: A Conversation with Tania Bruguera.” Afterall, https://www.afterall.org/publications/
Muse, Amy. The Drama and Theatre of Annie Baker. London: Methuen Drama, 2023
Oliver, Sophie. “Trauma, bodies, and performance art: Towards an embodied ethics of seeing,” in Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 24(1), February 2010:119-129 DOI:10.1080/10304310903362775
Performance, Madness and Psychiatry. Isolated Acts, eds., Anna Harpin and Juliet Foster. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Pek, Ying Sze “Figuring Digital Experience” in Reality Expanded: The Work of Hito Steyerl, 1998–2015. Dissertation Princeton University, September 2022
Sabsay, Leticia. “Permeable Bodies: Vulnerability, Affective Powers, Hegemony.” Vulnerability in Resistance. eds., Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, Leticia Sabsay. DUP, 2016.
Shepherd, Simon. Theatre, Body and Pleasure. Routledge, 2013
Steyerl, Hito. The Wretched of the Screen. Sternberg Press.
Steyerl, Hito. “Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy.” e-flux journal, 38, October 2012.
Steyerl, Hito. Tech Colonialism: Too Much World (H. U. Obrist, E. Morozov, H. Steyerl) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo-q8tao-QI
The Body. A Reader, eds. Mariam Fraser, Monica Greco. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Theory for Theatre Studies: Bodies. Eds. Soyica Diggs Colbert, Kim Solga, Susan Bennett, Kim Solga, Susan Bennett. London, New York: Methuen Drama, 2022.
Ursula Frohne, Christian Katti. “Crossing Boundaries in Cyberspace? The Politics of “Body” and “Language” after the Emergence of New Media.” Art Journal, 59(4), (2000), 8–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2000.10792025
Wald, Christina. Hysteria, Trauma and Melancholia. Performative Maladies in Contemporary Anglophone Drama. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Course requirements:
Participation: Students are expected to attend classes, read the materials assigned and participate in discussions. Since there is no essay assessment, participation extends far beyond mere attendance (no more than 2 excused absences). During the class discussion students are expected to refer to the primary and secondary readings (both plays and theoretical works).
Presentations: There is no essay assessment in this course. Therefore, to get the credit (Zkouška or Kvalifikovaný zápočet) for the course, each student will make two in-class presentations on a play from two different sess
