Browse Hierarchy DRA7013: Performance, Activism, Social Justice

This module explores how performance contributes to social justice, especially through activism. It examines: activist movements, such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, and activism for indigenous rights; activist practices and actions, spanning pacifism and violence, and including occupations, events like carnivals, and performances such as verbatim theatre; and intersecting theories of activism, social justice, and performance, such as Boal¿s Poetics of the Oppressed, Judith Butler¿s theory of assembly, and Christina Sharpe¿s theory of wake-work, drawing on wider literatures in, for example, critical race theory, environmental humanities, queer theory, law, and disability rights. The module focuses on the present but explores historical roots, such as the Diggers and Levellers of the English Civil War, South African Township Theatre, women's suffrage movements, struggles for abolition and decolonisation, and activism in relation to disability, AIDS, and more. It explores arguments for activism's benefits but also explorations of its limits. It considers how performance studies can help us better understand ¿ and potentially practice ¿ activism for social justice, and how performance might particularly contribute to action for social change.