English 2654 / Theater 2854 Fall 2018 Staging Blackness

Instructor: Guy Mark Foster Days/Times: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:50 – 4:15 pm Location: Adams # 208 Office: Mass. Hall, Rm. 107; Hours: Mon/Wed @ 1:30-3 & by appointment Telephone: 798-4317 / Email: [email protected]

Required Texts:  Ted Shine & James Hatch. Black Theatre USA: Plays by African Americans: The Recent Period, 1935-today  August Wilson. Fences  Harvey Young. Theatre & Race  Suzan-Lori Parks. Venus  Harvey Young & Rebecca Ann Rugg, Eds. Reimagining A Raisin in the Sun

Description: This course examines the history and contributions of African Americans to U.S. theatre from the early blackface minstrel tradition, to the revolutionary theater of the Black Arts writers, to more recent postmodernist stage spectacles. Among other concerns, such works often dramatize the efforts of African Americans to negotiate ongoing tensions between individual needs and group demands that result from historically changing forms of racial marginalization. A particular goal will be to closely examine what Harry Elam has called the “’productive ambivalence’ of the black performer to transgress, transcend, and even subvert established racial categories.”

Attendance: Because of the collaborative nature of the course, your presence is required for every class. However, students are allotted a minimum of two (2) unexcused absences for the semester (this includes athletic events). Any absence due to illness, in order to count as excused, must be accompanied by documentation from the Health Center or elsewhere. No exceptions. For any unexcused absence above the minimum, I may lower your final grade by a third. Missed classes should be communicated to me before the scheduled class meeting rather than after the fact via email or through a classmate.

Academic Honesty: Plagiarism takes many forms and can often be unintentional. Forms of plagiarism include (1) failing to properly cite borrowed ideas and quotations; (2) not using quotation marks to signal your use of someone else’s language, and (3) failing to properly summarize or paraphrase in your own words. Likewise, the penalties for plagiarism range widely as well, and include failing a particular course as well as formal disciplinary action from the College. We will discuss this matter later in the term, but you can also view Bowdoin’s policy @ http://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaffairs/academic-honesty/). To be safe, when in doubt, always cite your sources.

Assignments: 20% Two 5-7 page papers (w/sources) (10/11 and 11/20) 20% Two 1-page response papers (9/18 and 11/6) 30% Final Paper 6-8 pages (w/sources) (12/17) 15% Brief written report on reviews of theatrical production of student’s choice, w/biblio (12/6) 15% Preparedness and Participation

1 Failure to hand in all written assignments may result in a failing grade for the course. It is the students’ responsibility to keep track of assignments.

Schedule of Classes** Week One (8/30) Thursday: Introduction

Week Two (9/4-6) Tuesday Embodying Black Experience; p. 1-22 (Young) / The Matter of Whiteness (Dyer) Thursday: from Theatre & Race (Young): pp. 1-17 / Blackface and Blackness: The Minstrel Show in American Culture (Lott) Week Three (9/11-13) Tuesday: from Theatre & Race (Young): p. 36-56 / Black Minstrelsy and Double Inversion, Circa 1890 (Bean) Thursday: The Black Clown (Hughes) / The Black Performer and the Performance of Blackness (Elam)

Week Four (9/18-20) Tuesday: Black Minstrel, Black Modernism (Chude-Sokei) / Publicness, Silence, and the Sovereignty of the Interior (Quashie) / Response Paper #1 Thursday: Fight the Power: African American Humor as a Discourse of Resistance (Bailey)

Week Five (9/25-27) Tuesday: Criteria of Negro Art (Du Bois) / Art and Propaganda (Locke) / Rachel (Grimke) Thursday: The Dilemma of the Negro Author (Johnson) / Mulatto (Hughes)

Week Six (10/2-4) Tuesday: Color Struck (Hurston) / Yellowman (Orlandersmith) Thursday: Her Own Spook: Colorism, Vision, and the Dark Female Body (Fleetwood)

Fall Break Begins: October 5-10

Week Seven (10/11): Thursday: Take a Giant Step (Peterson) / Paper #1

Week Eight (10/16-18) Tuesday: A Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry) / Political Radicalism and the Artistic Innovation of Lorraine Hansberry (Wilkerson) Thursday: No class / conference

Week Nine (10/23-25) Tuesday: Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement (Zygmonski) / Dutchman (Baraka) Thursday: Wine in the Wilderness (Childress) / Black Feminists Respond to Black Power Masculinism (Springer)

Week Ten (10/30-11/1) Tuesday: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide (Shange) / The Myth of the Whore: Jezebel and the Revision of Black Women’s Sexuality (Anderson) Thursday: Fences (Wilson) / Read through selections from Harry Elam’s Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson+

2 Week Eleven (11/6-8) Tuesday: The End of Race Or the End of Blackness? August Wilson, Robert Brustein, and Color-Blind Casting (Catanese) / Theatre & Race (56-68) / Response Paper #2 Thursday: The Ground on Which I Stand (Wilson) / The Shattered Mirror: What August Wilson Means and Willed to Mean (Burbank)

Week Twelve (11/13-15) Tuesday: Beyond a Liberal Audience (Sonnega) / Black Text, White Director Issues of Race and Gender in Directing African American Drama (Donkin) / Thursday: The Colored Museum (Wolfe) / Signifyin(g) Ritual: Subverting Stereotypes, Salvaging Icons (Euell)

Week Thirteen (11/20) Tuesday: Venus (Parks) / Touching History: Staging Black Experience, pp. 119-137 only (Harvey) / Paper #2

Thanksgiving Holiday (11/21-26)

Week Fourteen (11/27-29) Tuesday: Black Theatre in the Age of Obama (Elam) Thursday: Clybourne Park (Norris) / Interview with author

Week Fifteen (12/4-6) Tuesday: Neighbors (Jacobs-Jenkins) Thursday: Neighbors / Interview with author / Report on Theatre Reviews

Final Paper due: Monday, December 17 (by 5 pm, outside my office)

** Readings may be substituted or changed at the discretion of the instructor + e-book (student choice – see book’s index for relevant pages)

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