CMLT C311/ C511 Drama:  Dramas of Transgression
A. Pao ~ TR 4:00-5:15
Meets with C311.

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.

C511 – in addition to the primary texts we will read secondary
criticism on the individual works and consider theoretical
approaches to the study of theatre and drama.  These will include
readings in the fields of theatre semiotics, gender criticism, and
postcolonial performance.  There will be one 15-20 final paper.