Berkley Center

In this interdisciplinary seminar, students investigates the themes, forms, and functions of a range of influential world theater traditions, including: the ancient theaters of Greece, Rome and India; the golden ages of classical Chinese and Japanese dance-theater-song; and the religious ritual drama of medieval Europe. By focusing on theater's early sources, the class considered its relation to other performance modes--such as religious ritual, public oratory, and/or spectacle. In so doing, students also considered divergent manifestations of meaning, power, play, culture, divinity, gender, aesthetics, and identity as negotiated through theater. Audio-visual materials, live performance, lecture, and group discussion were included. This class (TPST-240) was taught by Maya Roth as a Doyle Seminar (small upper-level classes that foster deepened student learning about diversity and difference through research and dialogue).