Department of English

The course will engage two on-going projects on the Penn campus in the Fall of 2017. These two projects are happening in tandem: one is an exhibition at the ICA entitled Speech/Acts which engages writings and performance by Black writers and artists, the other is a pop-up The Racial Imaginary Institute founded by Claudia Rankine. The objective of the course is to engage these two projects/proposals through the study of acting and directing. Students will read, study, and perform texts while addressing head-on the construction of race, specifically addressing whiteness and embodiment of race on stage. Class work will be performed at an end of the semester for the Racial Imaginary Institute Pop-Up show organized by the ICA.