Reading Performance - MEFT1300

   
   
   
 
Campus: Kensington Campus
 
 
Career: Undergraduate
 
 
Units of Credit: 6
 
 
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
 
 
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
 
 
Equivalent: THFI1002
 
 
Fee Band: 1 (more info)
 
 
Further Information: See Class Timetable
 
 

Description


Introduces different ways of analysing performance and performance bodies. Focuses on cultural performance, hybridity, authenticity, carnival, liminality, ritual, possession-trance, fieldwork and ethnography, cultural display, tourist performance, everyday life, performance art and avant-garde genres.

Learning Outcomes


By the end of this course, students should be able to:
  • demonstrate an understanding of the way Performance Studies relates to other disciplines - especially Theatre Studies, Anthropology, and Cultural Studies, and distinguish the idea of 'performance' from the idea of 'theatre'
  • analyse a range of everyday life behaviours and events as 'performance'
  • apply some of the key terminology of Performance Studies - such as 'liminality', 'hybridity', 'quotidian' and 'symbolic and restored behaviour' - to a wide range of everyday and contemporary performance practices, and be able to evaluate the evolving connections between those practices;
  • appreciate the role and function of, and demonstrate some skills in self-directed ethnographic analysis of performance;
  • identify how cultural performance and contemporary arts practice is informed by and responds to national and international political and aesthetic concerns;
  • demonstrate familiarity with scholarly research practice within the discipline of Performance Studies:
    a) read academic and performance texts with critical understanding, and use creative research exercises to explore critical ideas;
    b) access information and resources relevant to Performance Studies and contemporary performance;
    c) follow the conventions of academic writing i.e. referencing and quotation systems;
    d) work in an effective, self-motivated way in a university context.



Assessment


  • Tutorial Participation - 10%
  • Short-Answer Test - 10%
  • Fieldwork Exercise (1,200 words) - 30%
  • Take-Home Essay Exam (1500-2000 words) - 50%