Writing & Performing the Self

What is a self? How might writing and performance
together help forge or express its possibilities?
Drawing on creative writing, performance art,
literature, art criticism, cultural studies, and
black feminist theory, this class will open space
for CalArts students to write and perform the
self. Students will read personal/
autobiographical / performance texts, keep
personal journals, see live and archived
performance, write critical reflections, and more.
Key course topics will include embodiment, memory,
autobiography, persona, subjectivity, disclosure,
tracery, gesture, and action. We will also reckon
with the self in relation to race, class, gender,
sexuality, and other vital locations of identity.
Class readings, exercises, assignments, and
showings will help students develop final
performance text(s) over the course of the term.
Class will conclude with public reading/
performance as well as the compilation of an
annotated bibliography. Together we will
investigate, express, and activate the self in art
and the world.

Students should expect to spend between $50-$75
one course books and performance tickets.