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1 Nina Cornyetz Office Hours: all by appointment 1 Washington Place Tuesdays, 11-3 Room 606 Wednesdays, 9-12; nc25@nyu.edu Course Description: Doing Things With Words Fall, 2012 IDSEM-UG 1216 Tuesday, 3:30-6:10 25 West 4 th., C-11 The course will focus on an eclectic group of mostly contemporary, politically-directed writers and other artists primarily from various ethnic or racial minority backgrounds. We begin with performance proper, and then narrow our focus to discuss what elements of performance are incorporated into narrative text to produce performative writing. Does minority positioning affect the content, structure, and manner in which these artists perform or write, and in turn, how they are received? How might sexual/gender politics nuance that positioning? Rather than seeking division under the rubric of national literature, or the multicultural versions such as African-American or Asian- American writers/artists, the course will look for structural and contextual models that cross these categories - concern with oral histories and family-community genealogies, for example. We will also analyze how specific power politics inform these artists activities across their broadly diverse sociocultural, ethnic, and geopolitical contexts. Class Requirements: Attendance and participation: 20% * 2 papers, 30% each 60% Presentations 10% Additional writings 10% ** Participation is a vital part of this class, and therefore also your grade. If you have a very difficult time talking in class come to see me during office hours EARLY in the semester so we can talk about what we can do. Students are required to bring copies of assigned readings to class. Required Books: For sale at Shakespeare and Co., 716 Broadway, right across the street from Gallatin. Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and its Double. New York: Grove Press, Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge, (2006)

2 2 Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom. McGraw Hill, 1966 Klein, Susan Blakely. Ankoku Butô: The Premodern and Postmodern Influences on the Dance of Utter Darkness. Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Series, 1988 Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage, 2004 Nakagami, Kenji. The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto. Eve Zimmerman, trans. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2008 Ozeki, Ruth. My Year of Meats. New York: Viking, 1999 Phelan, Peggy and Jill Lane, eds. The Ends of Performance. New York: New York University Press, 1998 Robertson, Jennifer. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998 Shange, Ntozake. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. New York: Scribner Poetry, 1975 Sei Shonagon. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. Ivan Morris, trans. New York: Columbia University Press, Articles and excerpts on Blackboard 1. Diamond, Elin. Performance and Cultural Politics. London and New York: Routledge Brecht, Bertolt. Alienation effects in the Chinese Theater, and Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect. In Brecht on Theater: The Development of an Aesthetic. Willett, ed. and trans. New York: Hill and Wang, ; Young, Harvey. Introduction: Black Plays. Theatre Topics 19:1 (March, 2009): xiiixviii. 4. Mullen, Harryette, Artistic Expression was Flowing Everywhere, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, 4: 2 (2004): Baraka, Amiri. Selected poems from Funk Lore: New Poems ( ) Los Angeles: Littoral Books, 1996; Transbluesency, New York: Marsilio, Baraka, Amiri. Somebody Blew up America,

3 3 7. Gwiazda, Piotr, The Aesthetics of Politics, The Politics of Aesthetics, Contemporary Literature, 45:3 (Fall 2004): Austin, J.L. How To Do Things With Words. Second Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Selections. 9. Derrida, Jacques. Signature Event Context, in Limited, Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, King James Bible, 2 Samuel excerpt. 11. Wyatt, Jean. Giving Body to the Word, PMLA 108:3 (May, 1993): Cornyetz, Nina. Dangerous Men and All That Jazz, in Dangerous Women, Deadly Words: Phallic Fantasy and Modernity in Three Japanese Writers. Stanford: Stanford University Press, Cornyetz, Nina. Excerpt from Dangerous Women, Deadly Words: Phallic Fantasy and Modernity in Three Japanese Writers. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, Fukumori, Naomi. Chinese Learning as Performative Power in Makura no sôshi and Murasaki Shikibu nikki, in PAJLS (Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies): Acts of Writing 2 (Summer, 2001),

4 4 Schedule 1. Political Performance 1. Sept. 4: Introduction 2. Sept. 11: Toward a definition of performance and politics Readings: Diamond, Performance and Cultural Politics, Intro excerpt 1-7; (blackboard); Brecht, Brecht on Theater 91-99; (backboard); Butler, Gender Trouble, 1-34 (book); Artaud, Metaphysics and the Mise en scène, in The Theatre and its Double (book) 3. Sept. 18: Ntozake Shange - In Class AudioTape: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Was Enuf Readings: Young, Introduction: Black Plays (blackboard); Shange, For Colored Girls (book); Active Reading Poetry (blackboard); Mullen, Artistic Expression (blackboard); (In class: iona or yamada or wright or a combination.) Assignment: 2 page active reading notes and analysis. Student Presentation 1: Introduction to Shange 4. Sept. 25: Amiri Baraka - In Class: Baraka Video Readings: Baraka, selections from Funk Lore, Transbluesency, and Somebody Blew up America, Gwiazda, Aesthetics of Politics (all on blackboard) Assignment: 2 page active reading notes and analysis. Student Presentation 2: Introduction to Baraka 5. Oct. 2: Performing Gender/Sexuality - In Class Video: Dream Girls Readings: Butler, Gender Trouble, ; Robertson, Introduction, Staging Androgeny, and Performing Empire in Takarazuka (book) 6. Oct. 9: Dance of Darkness - In Class Video: Japanese Butoh Readings: Klein, Ankoku Butô: 1-68 (book); Artaud, The Theater and its Double, (book) Paper One due: in my mailbox, Tuesday Oct. 16, by 6pm. Oct. 16: no classes 2. Performative Writing 7. Oct. 23: Origins and Terminologies First Steps Defining Performative Writing Readings: Austin, How to Do Things with Words (excerpt; blackboard); Derrida, Signature Event Context, (blackboard);

5 5 8. Oct. 30: Interrogating Blackness Readings: Kemp, This Black Body in Question in The Ends of Performance, ; Pollock, Performing Writing in The Ends of Performance, (book); Start reading Absalom, Absalom! Assignment: 1-2 page analysis of Kemp using Pollack s terms 9. Nov. 6: Faulkner Readings: Finish reading Absalom, Absalom!; King James Bible: 2 Samuel excerpt (blackboard) Student Presentation 3 and 4: Introduction to Faulkner and relation of Bible to Faukner s text. 10. Nov. 13: Morrison Readings: Morrison, Beloved; Wyatt, Giving Body to the Word, Student Presentation 5 and 6: Introduction to Morrison, Analysis of Beloved 11. Nov. 20: The Japanese Faulkner in class video Readings: Cornyetz, Dangerous Men, (Blackboard); Nakagami, The Cape. Student Presentation 7: Introduction to Nakagami 12. Nov. 27: A Tenth Century Japanese Proto-Feminist 1 Readings: Shonagon, The Pillow Book 9-69 and footnotes, (book); Cornyetz, Excerpt from Dangerous Women, Deadly Words, 78-81; Fukumori, Chinese Learning as Performative Power, (blackboard) Student Presentation 8: Introduction to Sei Shonagon 13. Dec. 4: The Meat Manifesto Readings: Ozeki, My Year of Meats. Student Presentation 9: Analysis of My Year of Meats 14. Dec. 11: Between Body and Text Read: Augsburg, Orlan s Performative Transformations, and Orlan, Intervention, both in Phelan, ed. The Ends of Performance, (book) (Yamada Eimi. / Haiku by wright; artwork by iona brown) Second Paper Due in class

Nina Cornyetz Office: 1 Washington Place Room 606. Office hours: By appointment only, Tuesday 2-6; Wednesday 11-12

Nina Cornyetz Office: 1 Washington Place Room 606. Office hours: By appointment only, Tuesday 2-6; Wednesday 11-12 Nina Cornyetz nc25@nyu.edu Office: 1 Washington Place 212-998-7315 Room 606 Office hours: By appointment only, Tuesday 2-6; Wednesday 11-12 Psychoanalysis Beyond Freud IDSEM-UG.1843 Spring 2016 Monday