CMLT-C311 Drama:  Dramas of Transgression
A. Pao ~ TR 4:00-5:15
This course fulfills COAS A&H requirement.
Meets with CMLT-C511

World drama is filled with tales of transgression – the breaking of
legal, moral, religious and social prescriptions.  Over the
centuries such transgressions have appeared on stage cast as tragic,
comic, melodramatic and symbolic events.  This semester we will
study plays that center around acts of violation, resistance or
survival.  In the process we will consider how generic conventions,
performance practices, and conceptions of the function of theatre
and drama in society have shaped the interpretation and reception of
these works in the past and in the present.

The plays we will read include:  Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’
Medea, Shakespeare’s Othello, Moliére’s George Dandin, Racine’s
Phaedra, Lillo’s London Merchant, Boucicault’s Octoroon, Ibsen’s
Hedda Gabler, Brecht’s Galileo, Yeats “Purgatory,” Lorca’s Blood
Wedding, Genet’s The Maids, Kobo Abe’s Involuntary Homicide,
Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, Fugard’s The Island.

There will be a midterm, a take-home final exam and an 8-10 page
term paper.