When: November 10
What: A "theatrical treatment" of a scene of your choice that addresses selfhood.
How: Individually or in pairs (if you choose the latter, both students will receive the same grade)
Where: In class (and to be completed by the end of the class period)
Medium: Typed or handwritten. You can email me your work by the end of the class period or hand it in directly. However, all feedback will be given via email, so if you handwrite, please include your email address. In both cases, be sure to include your name(s)
Description
For this assignment you must choose a scene (any scene from any of the plays on the course schedule) and produce a "theatrical treatment" that addresses the theme of selfhood.
What this means specifically is that you should choose a scene or a passage that, according to you, expresses a particular idea about selfhood. Then, thinking like a director, you must decide what performative and scenographic decisions you would make to articulate this idea about selfhood on stage. Who would be on stage? How would they be arranged in space? How would they move? Would there be specific considerations given to casting, acting, lighting, scenery, costume? These are just some of the questions you might consider as you're working on this project.
A central assumption of this course is that "selfhood" is a theme that has both a conceptual and a theatrical dimension in Shakespeare's plays. The point of this assignment, therefore, is to get you to bring together these two modes of analysis--the conceptual and the theatrical--in a way that's mutually illuminating.
The "theatrical treatment" you write in class should consist of two sections:
(1) An analysis of how selfhood is represented in the scene you've chosen (1-2 pages). This is straightforward literary-critical analysis.
(2) A description of the precise performative and scenographic decisions you would make to articulate to a theater audience the ideas about selfhood you just outlined in the previous section. This should consist of precise description, almost like extended stage directions or theatrical program notes. Modern playwrights like Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill frequently include extended stage directions that describe exactly how scenes should be treated in order to advance the particular ideas they have in mind. You're not required to imitate this style, but if you think you'd find it helpful to consult some of these playwrights as a loose guide, feel free to do so.
I suggest you start thinking about which scene you might want to work on as soon as possible. Set aside some time during Reading Week to plan and generate some notes. You're allowed to bring these notes and a copy of the play on the day of the assignment.
Have fun with this project! It's unique in that it allows you to bring together critical and creative thinking. I hope you enjoy working on it.
NOTE: If this semester, autumn 2015, is your first semester in the MA program and you intend to validate this course with the university exam, then you don't have to do this assignment.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Monday, September 21, 2015
Thoughts on Shakespeare's Sonnets and Selfhood
As I read through our selection of sonnets, two basic questions emerge as central to our critical task. They are as follows:
(1) What does the poetic treatment of love and desire in the 16th/17th century have to tell us about conceptions of selfhood in that period?
(2) In what ways does Shakespeare interrogate or struggle with those conceptions of selfhood?
The first question is methodological and theoretical. It has to do with poetry's status as intellectual-historical evidence. What can this kind of source tell us about selfhood that other sources can't? The second question has to do with an individual writer's craft. To get a better sense of this, you may (if you have time) choose to look at some other sonnets written by other English Renaissance poets for comparison. A couple useful ones are Edmund Spenser's sonnet 75 (from the Amoretti, 1594) and Philip Sidney's sonnet 1 (from Astrohpil and Stella, 1591).
(1) What does the poetic treatment of love and desire in the 16th/17th century have to tell us about conceptions of selfhood in that period?
(2) In what ways does Shakespeare interrogate or struggle with those conceptions of selfhood?
The first question is methodological and theoretical. It has to do with poetry's status as intellectual-historical evidence. What can this kind of source tell us about selfhood that other sources can't? The second question has to do with an individual writer's craft. To get a better sense of this, you may (if you have time) choose to look at some other sonnets written by other English Renaissance poets for comparison. A couple useful ones are Edmund Spenser's sonnet 75 (from the Amoretti, 1594) and Philip Sidney's sonnet 1 (from Astrohpil and Stella, 1591).
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Monday, September 14, 2015
Historical Contexts: What is a Self?
Top to bottom: image from René Descartes, Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology (Leiden, 1637); frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London, 1651), detail from Leviathan frontispiece; frontispiece and two images from Andreas Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Basel, 1543).
Welcome!
Welcome, everyone, to "Shakespeare and Selfhood," an M.A. seminar at the University of Lausanne. I look forward to working with you over the next several months. Below is a basic course description. (You can download a full prospectus and class schedule from Moodle.) This blog will be used to post discussion questions, assignment information, and other resources, so please bookmark it and check it regularly. Thanks!
Shakespeare and Selfhood
Shakespeare and Selfhood
Autumn 2015
Anthropole 4129
Tuesday, 10:15-11:45
Prof. Kevin
Curran
Office: Anth
5123
Consultation:
Tuesdays, 1:00-3:00 PM
Email:
kevin.curran@unil.ch
Description
What is a self? Are we minds that just happen to
perceive a body and physical surroundings, or are we bodies whose sensory
experience of material reality creates something that feels like an independent
mental world? Are we free agents, or are our actions determined by our
environment? And if we can figure out who we are, does that make it easier to
know how we should live? For example, is there a certain system of governance
(monarchy, democracy, socialism) that is more in sync with human nature than
others? There have been many attempts to answer these questions in philosophy,
politics, science, law, and religion. The premise of this course, a premise
shared by many readers and theatergoers from the eighteenth century onwards, is
that Shakespeare, too, has something to tell us about selfhood. Focusing on a
selection of plays, this course will explore the relationship between
Shakespearean drama and the idea of selfhood from two perspectives: (1)
Historical: Shakespeare wrote his plays during what is typically taken to be a
watershed period in the history of selfhood, a period during which some have
argued the modern self—closed, autonomous, interiorized, uniquely
individual—begins to emerge. (2) Theatrical: the social and material contexts
in which Shakespeare’s plays were performed and the gestural and rhetorical
practices used to form character on stage contribute to specific ways of
understanding the self.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)