J. Klein

APPROACH: Performance media have become a principal vehicle for the exploration and representation of gender issues. Depictions of women in theatre and film have come under close scrutiny due to the powerful role these media play in constructing gender-based perceptions and expectations. Beyond serving as role models for audience members, the images of women we read from the stage and the screen manipulate us in subtler ways according to the mechanisms of their texts, their apparati, and our viewpoint. Scholars and artists from diverse backgrounds have produced a significant record of scholarship and artistic experiment to examine the construction of gender in these media. Their work is fundamentally interdisciplinary, drawing on perspectives from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and "hard" sciences, and it is on the vanguard of contemporary theory in these arenas. The course syllabus will provide an overview of history, theory, plays, films, and controversies related to these issues. Due to the special coincidence of this year's Women Studies Colloquium, which will feature a topic and speakers related to the subject of this course, we shall devote a section of the syllabus to Representations of Sex(uality): Pornography, Obscenity, Deviance, focusing especially on Laura Kipnis, whose work is always included on this syllabus and who will be a Colloquium guest.

Gender and Sexuality (This page publishes texts which address gender studies and queer studies, with a particular focus upon discussions of sex, gender, sexual identity and sexuality in cultural practices.) http://eserver.org/Gender/

T "Case" Study: The Oresteia and the Classical Legacy of Performing Gender (The Oresteia [includes The Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides], http://www.temple.edu/classics/oresteiaho.html: familiarize yourself with the trilogy and read the Fagles introductory essay)

R "Case" Study: The Oresteia and the Classical Legacy of Performing Gender (continued)

T Excluding Women: Canons and Canonical Reading (Case, pp. 28-61; xerox of Dulcitius)

R Marginalizing Women in Eurocentric Theatre Practices (Biographical report topics due; Martin, pp. 1-30 and pp. 61-78)

T Liberal, Radical, and Materialist Models of Feminist Performance (Case, pp. 62-94)

T Disrupting the Image: A Materialist Model (Venus) (** The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild opens, Wednesday, 8PM, Bruce Davis Theater**) (**Watch for Women's History Month Events throughout March**)

R Pornography and the Coded Body: In-class screening of Crumb, class meets in Library 306 (Kipnis [B&G], pp. vii-63)

T Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy (Kipnis [B&G], pp. 64-92 and 122-160; Script Study Report topics due)

R Impolitic Bodies: In-Class Screening of Laura Kipnis's Marx: The Video, A Politics of Revolting Bodies, class meets in Library 306 (recommended: Kauffman, pp. 1-80)

T PRESENTATIONS: Script Studies (Reports due)(**Attend Women Studies Colloquium Events, W, per schedule, including Laura Kipnis Lecture, W 4:45PM, Cole Cinema**)

R (**Attend Women Studies Colloquium Events, TR, per schedule, also Laura Kipnis in-class discussion of her work, 10-12 noon in MH 118 **)

R PRESENTATIONS: Script Studies (Reports due; Final Project proposals due)

T Embodiment of Other (xerox from Kondo, pp. 3-54; Case, pp. 95-111; Martin, pp. 81-93 and pp. 185-204)

R Gender in Performance: Theoretical Discourses (Martin, pp. 120-182; Case, pp. 112-132)

T Feminist Performance Venues ("Women's Performance Art: Feminism and Postmodernism," from Case anthology or xerox; Martin, pp. 108-119 and pp. 205-303)

R Unstitching Suture: In-Class Screening of either The French Lieutenant's Woman or Privilege, class meets in Library 306

T Disrupting the Gaze and Making the Invisible Visible (xeroxed selections from Mulvey and Kuhn)

R Feminisms and Cyberculture (Bell/Kennedy, pp. 216-229, 283-324, 325-387, 439-459) (**The Road to Kyoto! opens, 8PM, Bruce Davis Theater**)