WUSTL Course Listings Login with WUSTL Key
Search Results: Help Display: Open + Closed     Just Open     Just Closed View: Regular     Condensed     Expanded
1 course found.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE & THOUGHT (L16)  (Dept. Info)Arts & Sciences  (Policies)SP2025

L16 CompLitTht 449ASeminar in Dramatic Theory3.0 Units
Description:This course is an in-depth exploration of core works of dramatic theory from the ancient world to the present, and it will introduce texts that enunciate what theater is, has been, and should be. We will study authors' expressions of theater's role in society, their articulations of and responses to anti-theatrical prejudice, and their negotiations of the contradiction of putting "the real" on stage. Other significant themes include accounting for the aesthetic pleasures of drama and theater; theater as a means of educating the citizen; and the relationship between dramatic form and social and political revolution. Moving chronologically, we begin with foundational documents of the ancient world, including Aristotle's "Poetics," Bharata's "Natyasastra," and Horace's "Ars Poetica." The course then progresses through the Middle Ages, the Neoclassical and Romantic eras, and the explosion of fin de siecle avant-gardes. We will also read key texts from beyond the European tradition, including works of dramatic theory written in medieval Japan (Zeami), postcolonial Nigeria (Soyinka), and the millennial, multicultural United States (Parks). Along these same lines, we will also be attuned to transnational exchange and influence, particularly as it appears in the 20th-century theories of Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, and Konstantin Stanislavsky. Although the course will be focused on efforts to describe and prescribe theories of drama, dramatic genre, and theatrical pleasure, it will also position play scripts alongside the theoretical treatises that guide or are guided by them.
Attributes:A&S IQSSCArchSSCArtSSCENS
Instruction Type:Classroom instruction Grade Options:CPA Fees:
Course Type:IdentSame As:L15 449  L15 5305Frequency:Spring / Summer / History
Label

Home/Ident

A course may be either a “Home” course or an “Ident” course.

A “Home” course is a course that is created, maintained and “owned” by one academic department (aka the “Home” department). The “Home” department is primarily responsible for the decision making and logistical support for the course and instructor.

An “Ident” course is the exact same course as the “Home” (i.e. same instructor, same class time, etc), but is simply being offered to students through another department for purposes of registering under a different department and course number.

Students should, whenever possible, register for their courses under the department number toward which they intend to count the course. For example, an AFAS major should register for the course "Africa: Peoples and Cultures" under its Ident number, L90 306B, whereas an Anthropology major should register for the same course under its Home number, L48 306B.

Grade Options
C=Credit (letter grade)
P=Pass/Fail
A=Audit
U=Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
S=Special Audit
Q=ME Q (Medical School)

Please note: not all grade options assigned to a course are available to all students, based on prime school and/or division. Please contact the student support services area in your school or program with questions.