CLST 273G-001: Classical Tragedy - Women and Gender Focus Fall Semester 2019 Dr. Jacqueline Long

Performances and Performance-essays

Goals

• To collaborate in a creative endeavor complementing course work
• To experiment with performance of figures and stories from Classical tragedy
  • so as - by vivifying a literary text - to explore the expressive potential of drama (the root of the word drama, which is Greek, means "doing" something: performance is integral to the experience)
  • so as to explore specific plays' representations of women and gender
• To share your insights with your classmates through performance and discourse
• To reflect on the processes of insight, performance, and Classical tragedy, in light of a specific, shared creative experience
• To have fun doing it

Before the performance:

• read your play in its entirety
• recognize and articulate ideas you judge your play reflects about Classical Athenian tragedy and its representations of women and gender in especially interesting and important ways: think about what is important and why
• identify specific lines and scenes that demonstrate the ideas you identify, especially well
• find a scholarly article or book-chapter of learned analysis relating to the concerns you judge are important in your play (the optional ancillary articles and chapters recommended in the schedule are studies of the right general type, but may or may not cover the ideas in any one play you and your group choose as a focus: use their footnotes and bibliographies, library resources such as the Oxford Bibliographies Online - Classics, or the external resources of a dedicated site like Diotima, to help find works within your topic:
  • the article or chapter should have been published in a scholarly journal in the field of Classical Studies (list at TOCS-IN list) or a book published by a university press
  • the article or chapter should have been published no longer ago than 1975, preferably no longer ago than 1990
• evaluate your article or chapter: compare and contrast its arguments to your ideas about key passages in your play, and to our conversations in course-work more generally and explore how thinking further about your scholar's arguments enables you to deepen your own insights; analyze good reasons to agree where you agree and to disagree where you disagree

For the performance:

• discuss together the ideas you've developed individually, the scenes and passages that show them in action, and the insights you've built on by working with your secondary sources: compose your individual insights into a group consensus about how this play illustrates Classical Athenian tragedy's representations of women and gender
• settle together on what section(s) of your play you will present, so as to demonstrate the insights you have developed together
• decide how you will adapt your selection(s) for performance - be as faithful to the ancient Athenian conventions of performance as you can, OR transpose and adapt the play as radically as your imaginations direct - just so long as your performance will give the whole group a living enactment of the ways your play meditates on Classical Athenian tragedy and culture, especially in connection with women and gender
• incorporate into your performance some clearly accessible commentary on the insights you are presenting: make sure your audience sees what you judge to be interesting and important
• decide what members of the group will do to perform your selection(s), so as to bring out the interest and importance, and engage us all in an entertaining and illuminating experience
• your adapted selections + commentary will need to be possible to perform in the classroom, with its resources (or what you bring in), within 15-17 minutes of class time
• execute your plans

To hand in, at the class meeting of the performance:

• What significant aspects of the tragedy do(es) the section(s) you selected represent? Why do you judge they are significant? Identify the scholarly source you have consulted, and explain how its contributions intersect with your own ideas.
• How has your performance has been designed to display and experiment with these elements?
• Support your explanations by referring to specific, concrete items of evidence, in the text you're working with and in your performance, and explaining how they back up the claims you are making.
• Always observe all principles of Academic Integrity (of course) - it's YOUR learning!

Revised 15 August 2019 by jlong1@luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/classicalstudies/