Academic Year 2025/2026
Fall 2025
Instructors
Natsu Onoda Power
Meeting Info
Wirtz Center SOUTH: Wed 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Overview of class
This course explores approaches and techniques for devising a solo performance.
*Required for all first-year PS Students.*
Instructors
Shayna Silverstein
shayna.silverstein@northwestern.edu
Meeting Info
Annie May Swift Hall 110: Thurs 9:30AM – 12:20PM
Overview of class
Studies of foundational arguments, methods, and problems in performance studies research.
Class Attributes
Graduate Students Only
*Required for first-year graduate students.*
Instructors
Thomas F. DeFrantz
Meeting Info
Meets in Non-General PurposeRm: Mon, Wed 11:00AM – 12:20PM
Overview of class
Workshop exploration of technologies embedded in performance: robots, media, computer interface. Students create performance projects and discuss theoretical and historical implications of technologies in performance. Hands-on making and engineering workshops to develop basic skills in technological crafts such as circuit design and fabrication toward technologically enhanced performance. No previous experience or programming skills required.
Students will show creative work in each unit of the course.
Topic
Performance, Race and Media
Instructors
Miriam Petty
Joshua Chambers-Letson
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Tues 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Overview of class
Recognizing that media and performance—medium and the body—play related but divergent role in the making and unmaking of race, this course draws media studies and performance studies together to engage emergent and enduring texts relevant to issues of race, performance, and media from a variety of disciplines, eras, approaches, and schools of thought. We engage with film, video, new media, performance art, television, popular musical performance and the music video, as well as criticism and theory from Black studies, Asian American studies, and Latinx studies, with particular emphasis on Black feminisms and queer of color critique.
Topic
Black Thought: Mbembe, Moten, da Silva, Wynter
Instructors
Thomas F. DeFrantz
Meeting Info
Meets in Non-General PurposeRm: Tues 10:00AM – 1:00PM
Overview of class
Beginning with texts by Glissant and DuBois, this course demands close reading of work from four foundational thinkers of 21st-century Black life based on the African Continent, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the US. Alignments and distensions of concepts revealed by these researchers predict capacities to extend arguments of how Black Life coheres through methods of Black Thought. Graduate course.
Winter 2026
Instructors
Bimbola Akinbola
Meeting Info
TBA
Overview of class
TBA
Course Topic
Solo Performance and Freedom Practices
Instructors
Nadine George-Graves
Meeting Info
TBA
Overview of class
TBA
Spring 2026
Instructors
Marcela Fuentes
Meeting Info
TBA
Overview of class
TBA
Instructors
Shayna Silverstein
Meeting Info
TBA
Overview of class
TBA
Instructors
Dotun Ayobade
Meeting Info
TBA
Overview of class
TBA
*Fulfills department ethnography method requirement.*
Instructors
Bimbola Akinbola
Meeting Info
TBA
Overview of class
TBA
*Required for 3rd year PS students.*
Academic Year 2024/2025
Fall 2024
Instructors
Marcela Fuentes
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Thurs 12:00PM – 2:50PM
Overview of class
This course focuses on the conceptualization and making of public performance. Guided by NU’s Performance Studies tradition of literary adaptation and performed ethnography, we will engage with current developments in creative practice as research towards centering embodiment in knowledge production and dissemination. The course aims to prepare first-year doctoral students in Performance Studies for the graduate performance and it welcomes students from other programs who are interested in exploring the relationship between aesthetics, critical inquiry, and multimodal communication. Through critical essays, in-class discussions, performance workshops, and performance presentations we will investigate what it means to use the body, liveness, objects, and storytelling as research and communication media. The aim of the course is to explore performance as a meaning-making and transformative practice, paying close attention to the role of embodied expression as a central component of critical inquiry.
Instructors
Shayna Silverstein
shayna.silverstein@northwestern.edu
Meeting Info
Annie May Swift Hall 110: Wed 9:00AM – 11:50AM
Overview of class
This course will introduce incoming graduate students to the field of performance studies, and its key concepts and methodologies; prepare students for Master’s and Dissertation research and writing; and help them engage current Performance Studies faculty and their research through focused discussions of their work.
Class Attributes
Graduate Students Only
*Required for first-year graduate students.*
Instructors
Bimbola Akinbola
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Fri 11:00AM – 1:50PM
Overview of class
This graduate seminar will delve into the complexities of teaching Performance Studies. We will focus on the various ethical, political, and social considerations present in the contemporary Performance Studies classroom, including issues related to race, class, gender and sexuality. The seminar will offer students a chance to develop their own pedagogical style through practice lectures, teaching statement and syllabus creation, and learning to give and receive constructive feedback.
Class Attributes
PhD Course
*Required for all PS students.*
Topic
Dance. Performance. Ethnography
Instructors
Melissa Blanco
Meeting Info
Wirtz 235 Seminar Room 1: Wed 2:00PM – 4:50PM
Overview of class
Contact the department for further information
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for Graduate Students.
*Fulfills ethnography methods requirement for PS students.*
Winter 2025
Topic
Durational Performance: Blood, Sweat, Tears
Instructors
Bimbola Akinbola
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Tues 11:00AM – 1:50PM
Overview of class
Durational or endurance art describes live performance where the artist performs over an extended period of time, often testing their own physical and emotional stamina and that of their audience. In this course, students will learn the history of this style of performance and watch the work of durational performance artists from across the globe. We will not only study durational performance from the performer’s standpoint, but also use meditation techniques to train our own minds and bodies to sit through the discomfort of watching long and often repetitive performances. Students will also have an opportunity to perform themselves and experiences this type of work from the inside.
Topic
Performing Madness
Instructors
Natsu Onoda Power
Meeting Info
Wirtz Center SOUTH: Wed 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Overview of class
This multidisciplinary course explores the relationship between madness/mental illness and performance. Drawing from creative and scholarly texts from literature, history, philosophy, medical science, film and others, we will investigate how the idea of mental illness is represented and/or performed, in theatrical and non-theatrical contexts. Performance and other creative processes will be core to our classroom practice, in addition to discussions and presentations. This course is open to advanced undergraduate students as well as graduate students.
Topic
Adaptation: The Yearling Project
Instructors
Mary Zimmerman
Meeting Info
Wirtz 225 Instruct Black Box 2: Thurs 11:00AM – 2:00PM
Overview of class
The course studies the staging of opera in three intertwined ways: 1) the history of the development of opera on stage and contemporary opera direction, theory and criticism 2) design and practical concerns in approaching opera on stage and 3) exercises in staging arias and scenes. In addition to the staging exercises, assignments for the course include reading, viewing full videos of operas as well as many clips (outside of class), writing short papers and a final project. The course is taught from a theatrical point of view and students need have no prior experience with or great love of opera. For graduates and seniors with some directing experience, or others with a wild interest.
Topic
Black Performance Theory
Instructors
Thomas F. DeFrantz
Meeting Info
Meets in Non-General PurposeRm: Tues 9:00AM – 12:00PM
Overview of class
Overview of research methods and foundational knowledges that contribute to the field of Black Performance Theory.
Topic
Black Feminist Performance
Instructors
Bimbola Akinbola
Meeting Info
Wirtz 240 Seminar Room 2: Fri 10:00AM – 12:50PM
Overview of class
In this course we will examine a multitude of performances investigating the complexities of Black feminisms. Considering the intersections of gender expression, class, sexuality, and ethnicity, we will reflect on how feminism has been defined and contested by Black women and genderqueer artists. Over the course of the quarter, we will at times delve into our own performance making practices and consider how performance can be used as a tool to clarify and embody theory. Questions we will consider include: What have been the defining characteristics of Black feminist performance throughout history? How is performance uniquely situated to articulate the evolving concerns of Black feminism? Students who are interested in taking this course should email the professor at bimbola.akinbola@northwestern.edu to request a permission number.
Spring 2025
Topic
Digital Performances in Viral Times
Instructors
Marcela Fuentes
Meeting Info
Annie May Swift Hall 110: Wed 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Overview of class
In this project-based course we will investigate the relationship between performance and digital technology as “historians of the present.” Drawing from a compendium of pandemic performances that are part of an in-progress archive, we will analyze, interpret, and critique digitally mediated performances such as vaxxies, mental health TikTok videos, Zoom plays, and social media participatory projects that emerged during recent times of social isolation and unrest. Key course questions include: What can we learn from the aesthetic and communicative strategies that these digital performances animated, linking personal experience and social engagement? In what ways do these performances connect with and might help us navigate today’s context of (dis)information overload, polarization, and affective volatility? How have these performances critically expanded the field of digital performance studies, redefining what liveness is and does? Students will read scholarship on liveness and digital mediation, analyze networked performances of their choosing, and produce critical essays or curated performance collections using multimodal publishing platforms. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically analyze and assess digital artistic and social performances and apply digital literacy skills learned in hands-on sessions to present their research findings.
Topic
Listening: Methods and Issues
Instructors
Shayna Silverstein
shayna.silverstein@northwestern.edu
Meeting Info
Wirtz 225 Instruct Black Box 2: Tues 10:00AM – 12:50PM
Overview of class
Acoustic experiences are integral to the (trans)formation of modern subjectivity. This course brings critical discourses on listening and sound studies into conversation with performance studies by engaging with critical and phenomenological perspectives on sound, embodiment, and society. We address how listening practices shape identity and subject formation by discussing historical and contemporary studies in sound arts, popular music, and aural traditions, among others. Course readings draw from the fields of sound studies, philosophy, musicology and ethnomusicology, performance studies, and media studies, including texts by Ihde, Nancy, Sterne, Eidsheim, Kheshti, Labelle, Daughtry, Hirschkind, and Kapchan. Listening materials range from soundmaps, podcasts, and other popular expressions to sound installations and performance events by artists such as Francisco Lopez and Lawrence Abu Hamdan that challenge issues of representation and power. Finally we will craft our own listening practices through weekly prompts as an effort to amplify our work as researchers, artists, and listeners.
Class Attributes
Graduate Students Only
Topic
Curating Performance
Instructors
Marcela Fuentes
Meeting Info
Annie May Swift Hall 110: Wed 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Overview of class
In this project-based course we will investigate the relationship between performance and digital technology as “historians of the present.” Drawing from a compendium of pandemic performances that are part of an in-progress archive, we will analyze, interpret, and critique digitally mediated performances such as vaxxies, mental health TikTok videos, Zoom plays, and social media participatory projects that emerged during recent times of social isolation and unrest. Key course questions include: What can we learn from the aesthetic and communicative strategies that these digital performances animated, linking personal experience and social engagement? In what ways do these performances connect with and might help us navigate today’s context of (dis)information overload, polarization, and affective volatility? How have these performances critically expanded the field of digital performance studies, redefining what liveness is and does? Students will read scholarship on liveness and digital mediation, analyze networked performances of their choosing, and produce critical essays or curated performance collections using multimodal publishing platforms. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically analyze and assess digital artistic and social performances and apply digital literacy skills learned in hands-on sessions to present their research findings.
Academic Year 2023/2024
Fall 2023
Instructors
Nadine George-Graves
Overview of class
This course explores approaches and techniques for devising a solo performance.
*Required for all first-year PS Students.*
Instructors
Marcela Fuentes
Overview of class
Studies if foundational arguments, methods, and problems in performance studies research.
*Required for first-year graduate students.*
Winter 2024
Instructors
Dotun Ayobade
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Thurs 12:30PM – 3:20PM
Overview of class
This course invites students to imagine themselves as creators and curators, rather than as passive consumers or critics, of images about Africa. We will engage storytelling, photography, devised theater, and movement as creative strategies with which to probe the idea of Africa; and explore historical and contemporary discourses that underpin ideas about Africa in the West. We will also examine the social and imaginative worlds constructed by African artists themselves, alongside the embodied, creative work they create to capture multifaceted realities of what it means to be African today. As a community of learners, we will collectively engage the possibilities and limits of several performance strategies (i.e., reenactment, play, and revision) in approaching a culturally diverse continent with a lively global image. Over the course of the quarter, students will produce multiple performance pieces, while cultivating a critical eye for the works of African artists and engaging in generous critique of one another’s efforts.
Instructors
Mary Zimmerman
Meeting Info
TBA: TBA
Overview of class
This is a course comprised of observing and assisting in the production The Matchbox Magic Flute at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. The production is an adaptation of Mozart’s Magic Flute, conceived and directed by the instructor. Students will attend rehearsals, production and design meetings, previews, and opening night. Students will create a schedule among themselves so that one of them is able to be present for most, if not all, of the production/rehearsal process. In addition, students will write a final paper. Please write directly to the instructor to apply for the class.
Topic
An Other History of Performance Art
Instructors
Joshua Chambers-Letson
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Mon 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Overview of class
This course will offer an approach to histories, theories, and critical perspectives on the genre of the performances art as grounded in the traditions of performance studies and minoritarian performance theory. Rethinking the epistemological horror established by the cannons of white art history, this class looks beneath, under, and over those deadening, sanctioned approach to the theorization of live art to imagine performance in and as a mode of minoritarian becoming and undoing.
Class Attributes
Graduate Students Only
Spring 2024
Instructors
Thomas F. DeFrantz
Meeting Info
Meets in Slippage Lab: Mon, Wed 2:00PM – 3:20PM
Overview of class
Workshop exploration of technologies embedded in performance: robots, media, computer interface. Students create performance projects and discuss theoretical and historical implications of technologies in performance. Hands-on making and engineering workshops to develop basic skills in technological crafts such as circuit design and fabrication toward technologically enhanced performance. No previous experience or programming skills required.
Students will show creative work in each unit of the course.
Topic
Afrofuturism
Instructors
Thomas F. DeFrantz
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 4-410: Tues 2:00PM – 4:50PM
Overview of class
Explores AfroFuturism, a literary and cultural aesthetic demonstrating/imagining how people of color project ourselves into narratives of the future. Investigation of speculative fiction, fantasy literature, sound cultures, artworks, music videos, and dance to trace the concept of an AfroFuturist point of view. Creation of AfroFuturist media and performances. Artists considered include writers Samuel R. Delany and Andrea Hairston; musicians Parliament-Funkadelic and Sun Ra; filmmaker Hype Williams; performers Janelle Monae and Flying Lotus.
The course is arranged around disciplinary rhetorics of sound, literature, performance, and visual cultures. Together we will read several texts together and consider their contents and contexts. Creative exercises or writing exercises will be spread throughout the semester. At least one of these exercises should be executed in a small group, as demonstration of an ensemble of collective action and shared study. As a final offering, students will produce either a research paper of 15-20 pages length, or a performance/media object of significant complexity as a final outcome of coursework
Topic
Transnational Flows of Performance
Instructors
Marcela Fuentes
Meeting Info
AM Swift Krause Studio 103: Wed 2:00PM – 4:50PM
Overview of class
This course explores transnationalism through the lens of performance studies. While transnationalism refers to the rapid flow of goods, information, and capital across fluid geographical borders, performance studies contributes a rich conceptual understanding of embodied culture, local/global synergies, border politics, and mediated alliances that account for other flows that involve memory, diasporic identities, and (dis)belonging. The class thus offers a unique methodology that combines social and aesthetic theory in the analysis of performance practices that animate transnational aesthetic, social, and political processes. Investigating practices of transnational artistic and cultural production, we’ll define the ways in which performance as a local, embodied event engages with the scale of the global and the transnational. Students will be encouraged to use performance as an object of study, analytic lens, and method, and explore their topics through their own performance-making approaches.