Drama 582

This course explores key events and movements in African American performance as an important factor in the emergence and development of the African American public sphere. Topics include the opening of the African Company in 1821, the first African American theatre company in New York City; black drama and abolitionism; the Harlem Renaissance; black performance during the Great Depression; the Black Arts Movement; performance and post-racial utopias at the turn of the 21st century; and the Black Lives Matter movement, among others. In trying to understand how African American performance helped create a black public sphere, we will be engaging with theories of the public sphere and critical race theories of performance.