PERF - Performance Studies

PERF 600 Graduate Scholarship in Performance Studies

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Overview of history, key issues, and major arguments in performance studies. Prerequisites: Admission to the MA in Performance Studies or approval of instructor.

PERF 601 Theories of Performance Studies

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Overview of major theories of performance studies and related disciplines; also includes major critical and cultural theories that contribute to the field. Prerequisites: Admission to the MA in Performance Studies or approval of instructor.

PERF 602 Research Methods in Performance Studies

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examination and assessment of primary research methods in performance studies; emphasis on post-positivist methods; includes examination of ethical imperatives in research. Prerequisite: Admission to the MA in Performance Studies or approval of instructor.

PERF 603 Performance, Power, and Identity

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Issues in, and production of, power and identity in expressive culture, examines how forms of power and varieties of social identity shape, and are shaped by, performance. Prerequisites: PERF 600 or approval of instructor.

PERF 604 Performing Vernacular Culture

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examines populist and counter-traditions in expressive culture; emphasis on contemporary cultures of performance and/as practices of everyday life. Prerequisites: PERF 600 or approval of instructor.

PERF 605 Globalization and Performance

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examination of global performances; theoretical and methodological approaches to globalization and/in performance and/as practices of everyday life. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 606 Performing Gender and Sexuality

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. . Examination of how gendered and sexual identities are explored and contested through performance. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 607 Performance and Technology

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Exploration of the intersection of performance and technology; special emphasis on the impact of technology on aesthetics, social and political formations, and the body. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 608 Performance and the Art of Government

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examination of performance in political processes and institutions; using the tools of performance studies to analyze and interpret the work of states and governments. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 610 Graduate Studies in Dance Research

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examines key theoretical and methodological issues in dance studies from a performance studies perspective.

PERF 611 Religions, Spiritualties, and Performance

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examines the intricate relationship between religious traditions and performance. Focus on contemporary religious movements. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 613 Performing Texas

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Explores "Texas" as a set of complex performances that construct specific identities and communities. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 614 Sound Studies

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. . Explores sound in social life; sound as performative of identity; sound performance. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 615 Spectacle and Performance

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examination of various popular performances as spectacle. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 616 Sport as Performance

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Explores sport as manifold modes of cultural performance; focus on embodiment, gender, race, nationalism, spectacle, politics, warfare, and media. Prerequisite: Graduate classification.

PERF 620 Ethnographic Approaches to Cultural Performance

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Critical methods and theories related to performance ethnography, including dance, theater, music, political events and traditional rituals; emphasis on political and ethical dimensions of field encounter, critical theory, identity politics and representation. May be taken two times for credit.

PERF 621 Graduate Studies in Popular Music Research

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examination of context, politics, and political economy of specific popular music forms. Prerequisite: Graduation classification.

PERF 622 Performance and the Construction of American Identity

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Role of performance in construction of national identity; special emphasis on post-Civil War US. Prerequisites: PERF 600, PEF 601, PERF 602, or approval of instructor.

PERF 623 Performance and the Senses

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the sense through to performance, including embodiment, affect theory, phenomenology, sensory ethnography and aesthetics.

PERF 624 Performance and Aesthetics

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. . Exploration of the relationship between performance and aesthetics in the production of knowledge, including kinesthetics and somatic knowledge, embodiment, theories of perception, aesthetics, internal senses, proprioception, interoception, external senses, taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight, the psychology of sensing, pain, impaired senses, immersive and therapeutic performance, technology and the senses.

PERF 625 Latino/a Expressive Culture

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Explores how issues concerning Latinos, including race and ethnicity, religion, border politics, immigration, the drug war, family, gender and sexuality, and class, are reflected and debated through expressive forms of performance such as theater, comedy music, folklore and performance art. Prerequisite: Acceptance into the MA in Performance Studies program or approval of instructor.

PERF 626 Latin American Soundscapes

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Interdisciplinary approach to sound-making and listening in Latin America; analysis of the relations between noise, music, silence and language; particular attention to music, noise, urban space and technology; performance studies, sound studies, Latin American studies, sociology, anthropology, political science and history.

PERF 627 Ecology and Performance

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Exploration of the intersections between performance studies and the science of ecology; discussion of ecological perspective to a cultural phenomenon, including dwindling natural resources, fragmentation of ecosystems, mass extinctions and global climate change.

PERF 645/WGST 645 Queer Theory

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Examination of the origins of theories of gender and sexual diversity and their intersections with feminist theories; study of foundational and contemporary texts that address queer theory with a particular emphasis on how its utilizations within performance studies. Prerequisites: Graduate classification. Cross Listing: WGST 645/PERF 645.

PERF 684 Professional Internship

Credits 1 to 6. 0 Lecture Hours. 1 to 6 Other Hours. Opportunity to put ideas, theories and methods learned in the classroom into practice; practical experience in a variety of settings, including local, state or federal agencies, museums, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, and private firms. May be repeated for credit. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Prerequisite: PERF 600, PERF 601, PERF 602; approval of Director of Graduate Studies.

PERF 685 Directed Studies

Credits 1 to 3. 1 to 3 Other Hours. Directed studies in specific areas of performance studies. Student may take up to two sections of directed studies in the same semester, with a maximum of 6 credits. Prerequisites: PERF 600, PERF 601, PERF 602, or approval of instructor.

PERF 689 Special Topics in Performance Studies

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. Selected topics in an identified area of performance studies. May be repeated for a total of 9 credits. Prerequisites: PERF 600, PERF 601, PERF 602, or approval of instructor.

PERF 691 Research

Credits 1 to 6. 1 to 6 Other Hours. Research for thesis. Prerequisites: Approval of director of graduate studies.