Postcolonial drama
Offered subject to availability of staff
8 points * 2.5 hours per week * Second semester * Clayton
This subject involves comparative analyses of contemporary drama and theatre from Africa, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and the West Indies. The focus is on texts and performance traditions that in some way respond to the experience of colonisation and special emphasis will be given to indigenous theatre, ritual and carnival, and representations of race and gender. Secondary reading in performance theory and post-colonial criticism is required and we will apply the ideas and issues raised by this to the texts under discussion. Seminars and workshops will involve theoretical discussion of the plays listed as well as practical exploration of these texts as theatrical works.
Assessment
Tutorial participation and presentation: 20% * Short exercise (1000 words): 20% * Long essay (3500 words): 60%
Prescribed texts
Cathcart S The Serpent's fall Currency
Chi J Bran Nue Dae Currency
Friel B Translations Faber
Fugard A Statements OUP
He Reo Hou Playmarket
Hewett D The Man from Mukinupin Currency
Highway T The Rez Sisters Fifth House
Hill E (ed.) Plays for today Longman
Nowra L The Golden Age Currency
Panikkar K N The Right to Rule and Domain of the Sun Seagull
Renée Wednesday to Come Victoria UP
Shakespeare W The Tempest OUP
Sistren Collective Bellywoman Bangarang New Beacon
Soyinka W Death and The King's Horseman Methuen
Recommended texts
Ashcroft B and others The empire writes back: Theory and practice in post-colonial literature Routledge
King B (ed.) Post-colonial English drama Macmillan