This course focuses on performance in the present day Post-Real landscape, analyzing:

What are the real, the truth, the authentic? How have these terms been articulated and defined? How have they shaped the 'social contract?' What are the post-truth, the post-real, the hyper-real, disinformation, and misinformation? How are these impacting society around the world? How do theatre and performance artists work with representations of the real, the truth, the authentic? With disinformation and misinformation? How is the truth and the real performed in the theatre of power and in social and political movements? How can we thoughtfully navigate this new terrain?

By understanding contemporary performances of truth, representation, and disinformation, we turn to the liberatory potentials in artists’ responses, from Howardina Pindell’s 1980 performance video Free White & 21, to Dread Scott’s 2019 Slave Rebellion Reenactment, Lisa Reihana’s in Pursuit of Venus, [infected], and others. Readings will be drawn from Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Achille Mbembe, Safiya Noble, Donna Haraway, Kim Tallbear, Marisol de la Cadena, Walter Mignolo, Virginia Eubanks, Shoshona Zuboff, and others.