Introductory description

TH332-30

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

This module will engage with a number of examples from a range of performance practices to examine the roles that such performances have played in contribution to debates and discourses around gender and sexuality. Examples will be drawn from performance art, performance poetry, plays, radio drama and stand-up comedy to allow the students to engage in analytical debate. Each weekly three-hour seminar will focus on a particular example of performance and explore its own particular contribution to gender and sexuality discourses. In each case the performance material will be framed by sets of weekly theoretical, cultural and historical readings in order to properly contextualise the work.

Plays looked at may include: Glengarry Glen Ross (Mamet); Frozen (Lavery); Far Away (Churchill); Black Watch (Burke); Duck (Feehily); The History Boys (Bennett); Belle Reprieve (Bourne, Shaw, Shaw, Weaver); Airsick (Frost)Phaedra's Love (Kane); Behzti, (Bhatti)

Other performers and performances examined at may include Franko B, Ron Athey, Orlan, Marina Abramovic, DV8's Enter Achilles, Mickey B, material from the Theatre of Witness Programme, and Paris is Burning.

Other documentary material will include Invisible Women and Miss Representation, both about gender imbalance in the media.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Discuss the ways in which late twentieth century and twenty-first century performance artists, theatre practitioners and playwrights have explored the relationships between gender, sexuality and power in relation to their historical and cultural contexts.
• Analyse a range of plays and performances in order to identify and explore ways in which dominant norms around gender and sexuality have been challenged and resisted.
• Explore how performances of gender and sexuality contribute to an understanding both concepts in terms of the agency of bodies in the social world.
• Demonstrate an understanding of how key conceptual frameworks can inform the creation and analysis of contemporary theatre/performance.
• Engage in research-based investigation of appropriate primary and secondary source material.
• Communicate what they have learnt both orally and in writing.

Indicative reading list

Adams, Rachel and David Savran, (eds). The Masculinity Studies Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Print.
Alexander, Bryant Keith. Performing Black Masculinity. Plymouth: Altamira Press, 2006. Print.
Aston, Elaine. An Introduction to Feminism & Theatre. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.
Aston, Elaine and Geraldine Harris, (eds). Feminist Futures? Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007. Print.
Aston, Elaine and Geraldine Harris. Performance Practice and Process: Contemporary [women] Practitioners. Basingstoke: Palgrace, 2008. Print.
Beynon, John. Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham: OUP, 2002. Print.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001. Print.
Brod, Harry and Michael Kaufman, (eds).Theorising Masculinities. London: Sage Publications, 1994. Print.
Buchbinder, David. Studying Men and Masculinities. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Print.
Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. 2nd edition. London Routledge, 1999. Print.
Carabine, Jean, (ed). Sexualities: Personal Lives and Social Policy. Bristol: The Policy Press, 2004. Print.
Case, Sue-Ellen. Split Britches. Abingdon: Oxford, 1996. Print.
Case, Sue-Ellen. Feminism and the Theatre. 2nd edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008. Print.
Connell, R. W. Masculinities. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005. Print.
Connell, R. W. Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002. Print.
Dolan, Lill. Theatre & Sexuality. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010. Print.
Edwards, Jason. Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Edwards, Tim. Cultures of Masculinity. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006. Print
Ferrebe, Alice and Fiona Tolan. Teaching Gender. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012. Print.
Forth, Christopher E. Masculinity in the Modern West. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008. Print.
Gale, Maggie B. and Viv Gardner, (eds). Women, Theatre and Performance. Manchester: MUP, 2000. Print.
Goodman, Lizbeth with Jane de Gay, (eds). The Routledge Reader in Gender and Performance. London: Routledge, 1998. Print.
Haywood, Chris and Mairtin Mac An Ghaill. Men and Masculinities. Buckingham: OUP, 2003. Print.
Hearn, Jeff and David Morgan, (eds). Men, Masculinities and Social Theory. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Print.
hooks bell. Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism.London: Pluto Press, 1981. Print.
Ince, Kate. Orlan: Millennial Female. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Print.
Jones, Amelia. Body Art: Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Print.
Keyssar, Helene. Feminist Theatre and Theory. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Print.
Lea, Daniel and Berthold Schoene, (eds). Posting the Male. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. Print.
Mac An Ghaill, Mairtin. The Making of Men. Buckingham: OUP, 1994. Print.
Mac An Ghaill, Mairtin, (ed). Understanding Masculinities. Buckingham: OUP, 1996. Print.
Mangan, Michael. Staging Masculinities: History, Gender, Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003. Print.
McInnes, John. The End of Masculinity. Buckingham: OUP, 1998. Print.
Morgan, David H. J. Discovering Men. London: Routledge, 1992. Print.
Morland, Iain and Annabelle Willox, (eds). Queer Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005. Print.
Pellegrini, Ann. Performance Anxieties. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Redfern, Catherine and Kirsten Aune. Reclaiming the F Word. London: Zed Books, 2010. Print.
Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory. Oxford: Wiley-Blackswell, 2010. Print.
Richards, MAry. Marina Abramovic. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010. Print.
Schneider, Rebecca. The Explicit Body in Performance. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Sedgewick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkley: University of California Press, 1990. Print.
Sihra, Melissa, (ed). Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Repression. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007. Print.
Walby, Sylvia. The Future of Feminism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011. Print.
Walsh, Fintan. Male Trouble: Masculinity and the Performance of Crisis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010. Print.
Weeks, Jeffrey. Sexuality. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Whitehead, Stephen M. and Frank J. Barrett. The Masculinities Reader. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. Print.
Whitehead, Stephen M. Men amd Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002. Print.
Wyllie, Andrew. Sex on Stage: Gender and Sexuality in Post-War British Theatre. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2009. Print.

Research element

The assignments will be informed by the student's own research.

Subject specific skills

Discuss the ways in which late twentieth century and twenty-first century performance artists, theatre practitioners and playwrights have explored the relationships between gender, sexuality and power in relation to their historical and cultural contexts.

Analyse a range of plays and performances in order to identify and explore ways in which dominant norms around gender and sexuality have been challenged and resisted.

Explore how performances of gender and sexuality contribute to an understanding both concepts in terms of the agency of bodies in the social world.

Demonstrate an understanding of how key conceptual frameworks can inform the creation and analysis of contemporary theatre/performance.

Engage in research-based investigation of appropriate primary and secondary source material.

Communicate what they have learnt both orally and in writing.

Transferable skills

research skills
analytical skills
communication skills
group-working skills
presentation skills