English 382EM - Advanced Topics in English: 'The World's a Stage: Early Modern Drama, Spatial Assemblages, and Cultural Geography'

Spatial representation onstage centers the discourse in which plays, contemporary surveying manuals, sermons, and conduct books orbit. We will read plays and put them in context with ideas about space and setting that intersect with contemporary ideas like assemblages, taskscapes, and the formation of cultural geography. This may beget questions like: how do dramatic representations of space shape ideological expressions of politics, race, and economics? How might we trace the historical imprint upon contemporary performances or readings? Literary analysis emerges as the principal method for connecting drama to political, cultural, racial, and economic ideas that structure our ways of thinking and deeply affect perceptions of hierarchy and value.

This course is open to juniors and seniors; Prereq: 8 credits in English and/or FMT.