BA Drama

The course explores ways in which gender and sexuality have been represented, constructed and considered on stage throughout what historian Eric Hobsbawm calls ‘the short 20^th century’, from the New Woman to queer performance in the 1990s. Students will be introduced to dramatic and theoretical works that defined, challenged and refined the performance of gender and sexuality through the century. The course covers a range of plays performed in Britain and America, some well-known and some now barely known, and considers the sociocultural and dramatic contexts that have influenced them. In studying well-known works alongside those lost from the mainstream, students will be asked to consider the extent to which ideas of gender and sexuality have been constructed, confirmed or challenged by these works. Influential theoretical and historical texts and other cultural works (e.g., films, art works, literature) from the period will be read alongside the plays with the intention of providing students with a context for the plays’ first production, reception, and subsequent impact.

• To critically engage with a range of plays and historical and cultural texts relating to the representation and construction of gender and sexuality
• To develop a nuanced and layered understanding of the way in which gender roles have been constituted, confirmed and contested through dramatic presentation
• To explore theatre as a forum for debate and role-modelling of socio-cultural change
• To develop enhanced skills in researching and analysing historical objects and artefacts

• Demonstrate a systematic understanding of critical sources and debates around gender and sexuality in the 20^th century, as relevant to theatre studies
• Demonstrate awareness of the contexts in which dramatic texts are created, disseminated and act as agents of change or reinforcing of norms
• Engage critically with a range of historical and contemporary examples of drama in relation to their representations of gender and sexuality, including dramatic works that have not yet received substantial critical attention

• Recognise the limits of knowledge, and its influence on analysis and interpretations, and to use this to develop sustained responses to materials as well as identify areas for on-going learning
• Develop articulate, convincing arguments about the ways in which gender and sexuality are inscribed through performance and articulate these in both written and spoken work.
• Develop a layered understanding of the ways in which the dissemination of cultural products determines behaviour and how challenging repertoires and canons can contest such behaviour
• Synthesise and analyse a range of critical texts and research resources, both historical and contemporary, to make a case for re-introducing work to the repertoire

• Communicate complex, multi-layered arguments and counter-arguments effectively, in written and verbal form
• Locate multiple forms of documentation using museum, library and archival resources, including databases and finding aids
• Manage own learning, including making use of advanced research scholarship and/or neglected primary sources in the area, at least some of which was identified independently

• Be able to communicate and work as a team, especially when providing peer feedback
• demonstrate an advanced ability to self-manage learning – to ask questions independently, identify relevant research material, take initiative, make decisions, and develop independent and sustained responses to complex problems
• demonstrate an understanding of ethical principles
• gain practical experience of locating and handling historical materials

Elaine Aston and Janelle Reinelt 'The Question of the Canon', The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights (CUP, 2000)

Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator in Action: Feminist Criticism for the Stage and Screen (Palgrave 2013)

Richard Dyer, The Culture of Queers (Routledge, 2002)

Lynette Goddard, Contemporary Black British Playwrights: Margins to Mainstream (Palgrave 2015)

Gabrielle Griffin, Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain (CUP, 2003)

Jordan Schildcrout, Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in American Theatre (University of Michigan Press, 2017)