Performance and Ethnography

This graduate seminar covers theories and methods of ethnographic research that will be of use to emerging scholars in theatre and performance studies and related disciplines. We will focus on two main approaches to the relationship between performance and ethnography: ethnography of performance, a field of ethnographic research that takes cultural performance as its object of investigation; and performance ethnography or performed ethnography, which privileges embodied enactment as a mode of cultural inquiry and employs techniques of theatrical presentation to represent research findings. Alongside weekly readings, in-class presentations, and online and in-person discussions and workshops, students will pursue a mini ethnographic research project that will culminate in a written essay with the option of a performance presentation.