THEA 560 (Seminar in Theatre History)

Section CRT (CRN: 47952)
“Theatre Theory and Criticism”
T TH 2 – 3:20 pm
Location: TBA
Professor Esther Kim Lee <kim32@uiuc.edu>

“A man with one theory is lost. He needs several of them, or lots!
He should stuff them in his pockets like newspapers.”

--Bertolt Brecht

This seminar will trace the principal manifestations of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern theory, criticism, and methodology in theatre scholarship. The first third of the course will focus on ancient theories of theatre beginning with Aristotle. The rest of the term will be devoted to surveying 20 th and 21 st century theories of theatre and performance. After a brief look at Naturalism, Expressionism, and other key attempts to characterize modern theatre, we will concentrate on a number of major theories and methodologies since the 20 th century. They will include, but not be limited to, the following topics: mimesis, theatricality, formalism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, phenomenology, deconstruction, feminism, Marxism, new historicism, reader/audience response theory, post-colonialism, cultural studies, and performance theories. The reading materials will not focus on analysis of plays, but rather, they will be concerned with methodology and theory. Sample authors will include most of the following and others: Roland Barthes, Susan Bennet, Kenneth Burke, Judith Butler, Marvin Carlson, Sue Ellen Case, Tracy Davis, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Georg Lukacs, Bruce A. McConachie, Patrice Pavis, Peggy Phelan, Joseph Roach, Richard Schechner, Viktor Shklovsky, Bert O. States, and Raymond Williams. Students enrolled in the seminar should be familiar with Aristotle’s Poetics for the first day of class.