We often encounter texts that escape us. They are extra confusing and seem beyond our ability to make sense of them. They are "incomprehensible" in the sense that we can't make the texts part of what we already know. Much of modern and postmodern art explicitly attempts to escape traditional interpretive schemes. This art wants to cross boundaries, transgress, and escape the control of readers and viewers. In sum, this art (and criticism) wants to blur conceptual, intellectual, aesthetic, and social boundaries.

Monday: Reading...

1. Sayre: "Performance" [handout]
   

2. Bennett "The Performative"
   

Short Response...

How does Sayre redefine a "performance"? What do performances do? How do they function? How do the new kinds of performances Sayre discusses differ from traditional performances? (Note that the first page and a half describes "traditional performances" while the rest of the essay focuses on what we will call "performatives.")

And how does Bennett's explanations help you understand what Sayre is saying? You should be able to explain the difference between sentences like "I bet... I promise... I christen thee..." and sentences like "It's five o'clock... My name is Dr. Laga... You're ugly"?

Wednesday and Friday

We will practice using performance theory to make sense of some very vexing texts.

Essay 5: Texts that Act: Performance Texts

First, choose a seemingly incomprehensible text. You'll have more success if you stay within the 20th century, for modern and postmodern texts are often deliberately performative. There are occasional odd pieces from all time periods, but they are harder to find.

Second, your task is to use Sayre's and Bennett's notion of performance to make sense of the texts. You're not really "interpreting" the works as much as explaining how they work or function. Again, you are not producing a performance as much as using "performance theory" to make sense of a text. You are, in a sense, classifying or categorizing a text again.

Select me. I'm your assignment.pdf