Universität Wien

170739 UE Mourning Practices in Contemporary Performance Art (2023S)

Continuous assessment of course work

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 30 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Wednesday 08.03. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 22.03. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 29.03. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 19.04. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 03.05. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 10.05. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 17.05. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 24.05. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 31.05. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 07.06. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 14.06. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 21.06. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde
Wednesday 28.06. 11:30 - 13:00 Seminarraum 3 2H467 UZA II Rotunde

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

“The loss of stories sharpens the hunger for them. So it is tempting to fill in the gaps and to provide closure where there is none. To create a space for mourning where it is prohibited. To fabricate a witness to a death not much noticed.” These words were expressed by Saidiya Hartman and directs us toward the issue that we will engage with in this course: the need for mourning processes and practices that have not been allowed, acknowledged or enacted. There is an imminent question of violent erasures of history in many regions of the world. Many communities have suffered extreme and long-durational violent processes, such as colonization, slavery, dictatorships, war, and socio-economic violent structures, many of which are left without a detailed historiographical trace. This course will focus on transgenerational trauma as explored through embodiment practices in contemporary performance art practices in non-European contexts. We will focus on specific examples of contemporary artists from Africa and Latin America, such as Doris Salcedo, Faustin Linyekula, Gabriele Goliath and others.

We will research performativity in its double meaning connecting its political and aesthetic aspects. We will pay attention to traumatic legacies of past experiences that cannot be represented as information or contained in archives or documents, as explored by Marianne Hirsch, but are understood as durational performances - a concept developed by Diana Taylor. We look at artists that deal with memories stored in bodies and intergenerational memories, especially artists that are actively working in their artistic practice to enable a space of mourning for the historical trauma and past violence. Integrating performance theory, postmemory trauma as well as current debates on identity politics, this course will focus on how artistic explorations inform remembrance from a post- and counter-memory stance.

Students will regularly read excerpts, summarize, and comment on theoretical texts dealing with historiography, performativity and historical trauma. Students will analyze artistic works collectively during the class sessions. Students’ participation in these discussions will be crucial and evaluated. As part of the course activities, students will be expected to thoroughly present an artistic work of their choice. The artistic work will need to deal with the opening or questioning of a space for historical mourning. Students will be expected to write a mid-term essay. The final essay should expand on the reviews and comments of the mid-term essay, together with the reflections that were held during the course.

Assessment and permitted materials

Students will regularly read excerpts, summarize, and comment on theoretical texts dealing with historiography, performativity and historical trauma. Students will analyze artistic works collectively during the class sessions. Students’ participation in these discussions will be crucial and evaluated. As part of the course activities, students will be expected to thoroughly present an artistic work of their choice. The artistic work will need to deal with the opening or questioning of a space for historical mourning. Students will be expected to write a mid-term essay. The final essay should expand on the reviews and comments of the mid-term essay, together with the reflections that were held during the course.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Regular active participation 25%; mid-term essay 20 %; presentation in class 20%; final essay or practical project 35 %. The final grade results from the average of the weighted partial performances. Each of these partial assignments must be accomplished at least with grade 4 (genügend) to succeed in the course.

A regular presence and reading of the texts is also a requirement to pass the course positively.

Students who are not present during the first session without prior communication with the lecturers will be signed off in order to allow other students to succeed.

This is an English-taught course, and hence, competency with the language is also a requirement.

Examination topics

Students will get engage in a critical dialogue regarding historical narratives in performance art, historical trauma, and post and counter-memory and history views from the arts. Students will exercise their analytical glance when engaging with contemporary performance art and will be able to contextualize specific artworks. They will engage with art from a political standpoint and understand different artistic positions when dealing with contemporary performance art. Students will have the opportunity to analyze artistic practices from both Africa and Latin America, which will enrich a very much Eurocentric art perspective. Students will able to analyze one artistic work in its philosophical, socio-political and historical depth.

Reading list

Adriana, Cavarero, and Langione Matt. 2012. "The Vocal Body: Extract from A Philosophical Encyclopaedia of the Body.
Agamben, Giorgio. 2016. "The use of bodies."
Butler, Judith. 2006. Precarious life: the powers of mourning and violence. London; New York: Verso.
Fanon, Frantz. 2008. "Black skin, white masks."
Fisher, Mark author. 2014. "Ghosts of my life: writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures."
Hartman, Saidiya. 2008. "Venus in Two Acts." Small Axe 12, no. 2 (26): 1'14.
Hartman, Saidiya V. 2007. "Lose your mother: a journey along the Atlantic slave route."
Hirsch, Marianne, and Nancy K. Miller. 2011. Rites of return: diaspora poetics and the politics of memory. Gender and culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lorde, Audre. 2007. "Sister outsider: essays and speeches."
Mbembe, Achille. 2001. "On the postcolony."
Mbembe, Achille. 2019. "Necropolitics."
Mignolo, Walter. 2021. The politics of decolonial investigations. On Decoloniality. Durham: Duke University Press.
Moten, Fred. 2017. "Black and blur."
Singh, Julietta. 2018. No archive will restore you. Santa Barbara, CA: Punctum Books,
Taylor, Diana. 2020. ¡Presente!: the politics of presence. Dissident acts. Durham: Duke University Press.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Tu 21.03.2023 14:09