Introduction to the Humanities Winter/Spring 2001 Performing the Past Introduced by Ehren Fordyce, Drama Link to Ehren Fordyce's "Performing the Past" Page

IHUM 22a,b -- Winter/Spring  Little Theatre, TU/TH 10-11AM Professor Ehren Fordyce Room 111, Memorial Hall 723-9730  Phaedra Bell Building 300, Room 211 5-9577 phaedra@stanford.edu    Steve Tillis Building 300, Room 209 5-9561 sgtillis@stanford.edu      MEDIA SUPPLEMENTS

Rationale This class is designed to offer students a broad survey of different cultures and periods -- from the ancient to modern; from the east to west, north to south -- and to do so specifically by using texts and artifacts related to traditions of performance. We will try to understand how history becomes embedded in performances; how performances attempt to shape and change history; how different notions about the workings of time and space come to inform the specific performances of different cultures; and how individual cultures themselves are subject to historical changes in the way that they process and understand their own cultural legacies. In terms of artifacts of performance, we will tend to concentrate on texts in dramatic or dialogic form that have become canonical within a specific culture or across a number of cultures. However, we will not restrict ourselves to texts. Whenever possible, we will try to also look at artifacts that offer a visual, physical, material, and performative sense of how cultures are enacted. From classic Greek vase drawings to contemporary videos, how can we reconstruct a lived sense of culture, a sense of how we constantly perform our histories in order to create our futures? Course Materials Individual texts of the Bhagavad-Gita, The Tempest, and Life is a Dream are available at the Stanford bookstore. All other readings are in a course reader, also available at the bookstore. There are also a variety of audio-visual materials assigned for the class: some will be made available at the Green Media Library for individual viewing; some will be publicly shown through streaming media over the campus network; some will be made available at the course web site. Requirements In addition to completing the assigned readings and media and to participating in class lectures and seminars, each student will write three essays of varying lengths (generally from 3-10 pages), the format and content of which will be discussed further in the seminars. Depending upon interest and time, there may be an opportunity to create a performance in lieu of one of the essays.  Syllabus Jan 9 Introduction Jan 11 The Song of Songs and Celan, "Death Fugue" Jan 16 Homer, Iliad, Bks. I-II, VI, XXII Jan 18 Aeschylus, The Oresteia: Agamemnon Jan 23 The Libation Bearers; Thucydides, "The Melian Dialogue" Jan 25 The Eumenides Jan 30 Selections from Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals Feb 1 The Bhagavad-Gita Feb 6 The Bhagavad-Gita Feb 8 The Mahabharata in performance: Selections from Indian kathakali; Balinese wayang kulit; Peter Brook, The Mahabharata Feb 13 Stanislavksi, "Action"; Artaud, "On the Balinese Theater"; Grotowski, "Towards a Poor Theatre" Feb 15 Montaigne, "On Cannibals" Feb 20 Shakespeare, The Tempest Feb 22 The Tempest Feb 27 Retamar, "Caliban" and "Caliban Revisited" Mar 1 Plato, The Republic, Bk. VII; Machiavelli, The Prince (Chaps. 1-3, 5-9, 15, 17-19) Mar 6 Calderon, Life is a Dream Mar 8 Life is a Dream Mar 13 The Matrix (Warner Bros.) Mar 15 Conclusion