TH 301LEC—World Theatre Before 1700

This course is an introduction to selected plays, aesthetic theories, and performance techniques from antiquity to the eighteenth century. Of course, it’s impossible to cover all of the significant works, movements, and innovations in global theater in one semester. The material presented here can only be an incomplete history - an outline to be fleshed out later as your knowledge of the subject grows. Nevertheless, this course will provide a sturdy foundation for future investigation, and a set of analytical tools to help you approach unfamiliar theatrical forms or reappraise familiar ones. Theater has always been a place to think: about politics, about religion, about social life, about cultural inheritances or projected futures, about the theater itself. We’ll weigh the arguments of theaters passionate advocates and its fiercest enemies; discuss its complex exchanges with other art forms; and consider its avid incorporation of new technologies.