The Politics of Movement: Bodies, Space, and Motion

Catalog description

This class interrogates new theoretical understandings about space and how bodies marked by various types of difference (race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, fatness, ability, and socioeconomic class) interact and move in it. We will uncover the visual, linguistic, and performative representations and social structures used in deciding which bodies are allowed to create and use spaces, and to what ends. We will ask questions that examine how people make claims to space. What kind of space does a performance engender? How do racialized and gendered spaces alter where performances can happen? This course is part-seminar and part-practicum. We will investigate theories that shape and contest our understanding of space, the body, and motion, and engage these themes by creating mini-performances. Previous performance experience is not necessary. (PMA-HTC)