Political Performance

In this graduate seminar, we will explore the relationship between performance and ideology in the "long contemporary" (20th - 21st century). In addition to asking what is political performance, we will also raise the question of the politics of performance: is there such a thing, and if so, what is it? Among other topics, we will revisit the debates about autonomous and committed art, emancipatory potential of performance, and live performance in relation to an increasingly automatized sociality. In this exploration, we will study the work of Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Louis Althusser, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Tania Bruguera and many others.