Eng-L512
MacKay and Cook
Notes of class on 2012.08.23
Prepared by Derek DiMatteo
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Ellen
Jackson and Worthen were married to each other. Worthen --
5 marriages to grad students. Grad placement service. Never talk to him about
this when you meet him (And you will meet him in this field).
Amy
We acknowledge that these readings are middle of the
conversation stuff re: names of people and their backstory. It’s part of
argumentative strategy being deployed by authors.
Ellen
If necessary to look up names, we’ll do it collectively.
Who is Jackson’s audience? Who is she speaking to?
Whitney
Seems like performance is almost dangerously overdetermined…
that performance might be stripped of its complexity… the audience is no one or
everyone.
Jamie
Could follow easily her argument. But Whitney’s thoughts
were how I felt about Worthen. Jackson was comparatively non-jargony.
Courtney
In part an academic audience. How destroy fields.
Dorothy
Academics who might use the term performance.
Andrea
Multiple depts.. and academics who come together.
Derek
Reminds me of the article Cody and I read for our Intro to
Cultural Studies class with Purnima Bose.
Cody
[several ideas I didn’t catch, concluding with:] so one is
left asking whether Performance Studies is the same as Cultural Studies.
Jenna
[I didn’t catch what she said; something about the opening
dialogue of Jackson?]
Ellen
But at the same time that foundation gets eroded.
3:00pm
Amy
So why start with dialogue?
Natalie
Audience is anyone confused by terms such as performativity,
etc. There are a lot of power plays.
Amy
To say that there are power plays, what are they?
Natalie
[didn’t catch it]
Amy
She sets up dichotomy btw ppl who put on plays and others.
Theory vs. practice.
Ellen
And later practice vs. production
Amy
The scene… it’s not a friendly conversation (in the opening
dialogue)
Ellen
There’s so many… disciplinary confusions. Difficult when you
find yourself at the interstices of different disciplines. […] All is like me – a solipsism that is possible
at a certain rank.
Amy
Do you do the thing or just go around talking about it? This
is made explicit in Jackson’s piece.
Jess
What is epistemology and its relation to perf. Studies?
Whitney
Etymology?
Cody
Epistemology is knowledge and how we form knowledge.
Ellen
The epistemological performance. The… [?]
Check OED or the J.H.
Encycl. of Theoretical Terms whenever you encounter these terms and want to
know meaning.
Amy
How does Jess’s question relate to the history of the
university?
Dorothy
My advisor [in ethnomusicology/folklore dept] said they
[i.e. Amy/Ellen/Engl Dept folks] won’t look at performance studies the way we
do [as an ethnomusicologist, etc], so I should supplement with readings from
our discipline. We don’t even bring up Foucault.
Ellen
But saying that…It calls us out. “Speaking as a ___” either
puts you into a relationship or it closes down the conversation (unless another
can put similar credentials on table).
This essay is like a list of ingredients for a productive
department meeting… Yes, institutional histories prevent us from hearing each
other… it’s a problem/dichotomy that we have to overcome.
Amy
Let’s move to Worthen… It’s like reading about a party I was
at, but saying “What? Where? I don’t remember it that way…”
Questions?
Courtney
He’s dancing around… archive vs. repertoire. Page 13 – the
anti-textualism of perf. Studies…But what replace it with? What is it now?
Jennifer
Manipulate terms, e.g. dramatic. Second half (from page 19)
offers methods [read quote:] “The text instead provides…past encounters.” Don’t
know that his methods work together. He wants to operate somewhere btw the text
and the performance.
Ellen
Look, why don’t you let me play in your sandbox?
He is trying to undo the binaries that Jackson outlined. If
you do drama, you are referring to the written text and do lit. analysis, not
performance studies. But this position neglects something essential in a text…
There are ways of including us all, including Engl studies
folks and Perf. Studies folks.
Then he says “Here are four people who do this well…” But in
reality there are more than four people who do this well, and they are not all
men.
3:25pm
Andrea
He wants a recognition of theatre as a whole rather than the
text. Film does it better. Playwright à text vs. director à
whole
Ellen
Film allows linguistic side of it to be subordinated (in a
way).
Amy
Establishment of the author.
The title is evocative. Is it clear how he’s using Antigone?
Page 12… [I lost a bunch of what she said]
Ellen
Attempt…
Fallacy -- Performance is repertoire, writing is archive
(unstable and contingent)
Way too positivistic understanding of archeology (?)
Amy
What gets lost in Jackson’s explanation? We can see what
falls out…
Departments where academics are trained are where they want
to teach / end up teaching
Speech is now taught in Biz School here at IU, which is a
change from the past.
Worthen is trying to get us to be aware of dichotomies that
are set up as a way to perpetuate a fight (e.g. “oh, I don’t do drama”).
Ellen
[I missed what she said]
Jennifer
Look at page 15 – why is he dividing them here?
Natalie
Because people need to get jobs. These questions really
matter for these practical reasons.
Sarah
My undergrad advisor called and said thank goodness I chose
a discipline.
Discipline versus methodology
(can adapt and change) (unchanging)
In forcing Perf. Studies to be disciplinarity
Ellen
Terms… need to have some stability.
Drama epitomized overlap.
Different objects and methodologies? Probably so. Can’t just
import other disciplines or theories because they will lose something.
… retrogressive move…
We have ceased to be attentive to potentially productive
nexuses.
Amy
Make visible the categories we can use or throw out
…
We (you, next generation of scholars) can generate next
disciplines.
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