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Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Renaissance Stage
| Semester and Year | SP 2013 |
| Course Number | IDSEM-UG1687 |
| Section | 001 |
| Instructor | Valerie Forman |
| Days | Mon,Wed |
| Time | 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM |
| Units | 4.0 |
| Level | U |
| Foundation Requirement | HUM, EARLY |
Notes/Restrictions
Same as MEDI-UA 996 001 and ENGL-UA 800 002.
Description
The Renaissance witnessed both an explosion in theatrical innovation and an increasingly global world--the beginnings of global trade, the “discovery” of the New World, and bouts of both conflict and cooperation among the world’s powers. By reading plays that stage encounters between Europeans from different countries and of different religions, between Europeans and the Ottoman Empire, among natives of “India,” and among Europeans, Native Americans, and African slaves, we explore how and why the stage became such a significant site for the representation of cross-cultural encounters. Some questions we explore include: how do these plays represent conflict—between self and other and over goods and territory—and what possibilities for reconciliation do they imagine? How does the theatre participate in the production of a global consciousness? How do these plays understand the differences encountered as a result of travel, trade, and exploration? Why did the theatre develop a fascination with the exotic (for example, with cannibals and pirates)? In what ways did what it means to be European, Christian, or even a good wife or husband get defined and altered by these encounters? In keeping with the theme of encounters, this course stages a number of creative encounters from the period: between works from different European nations; between plays and the prose works with which they were in dialogue; and between written and visual materials, for example, engravings of the New World and its inhabitants. We also read some newly translated accounts of how Arabs viewed Europe. Likely authors include, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Cervantes, Montaigne, Behn, Fletcher, DeBry, and Massinger.
Syllabus
Course Type
Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)
