This course explores the history, practice, ethics and possibilities of immersion-research based performance and writing. Through assigned readings, viewings of films and performances, class discussions and their own writing, students will survey the variety of performance and literature based on interviews, immersion reporting, and close listening and observation. We will examine how race, class, power, status, gender, sexuality and historical legacy inform different artists' approach to bringing real life stories to the stage, screen, and page. We will learn best practices around cross-cultural communication, permission, observation-witness, and inclusive collaboration. We will interrogate the concepts of emotional truth vs journalistic fact, artistic agency and structural power, authenticity and nuance, stereotypes and archetypes, reversing expectation, appropriation, representation, inclusivity, and diversity in cultural production. Students will create their own writing and performance pieces, and will gain tools and skills to engage more incisively as critics and creators of culture.Modern Topics courses are designed for Writing and Literature Majors and Minors and are focused on the critical investigation of a specific modern topic, movement, style, or tradition of literary and performative production, typically after the year 1900. Students will read and write critically on these topics, including multi-modal responses, and will position the texts within a socio-historical context.

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