This course explores representations of illness and disability in American drama from the mid-20th century to the present. It encourages students to engage with theatrical texts and performances under the theme of health and wellbeing. Intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and dis/ability will deepen students’ understanding of health topics in contemporary American theatre. A central goal is to familiarize students with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of the Medical and Health Humanities. In order to set a clear theoretical framework, the course utilizes core concepts, such as the “clinical gaze”, autopathography, narrative medicine, as well as the dynamics of politicized patienthood and the ethics of care. Ultimately, students will analyze how these plays respond to an evolving social and medical landscape, connecting dramatic narratives to the historical and cultural shifts in American healthcare and society.
Students will be able to:
Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
Cristofer, Michael. The Shadow Box (1977)
Medoff, Mark. Children of a Lesser God (1979)
Kramer, Larry. The Normal Heart (1985)
Kushner, Tony. Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (1991)
Miller, Susan. My Left Breast (1994)
Edson, Margaret. Wit (1995)
Kitt, Tom & Yorkey, Brian. Next to Normal (2008)
Majok, Martyna. Cost of Living (2017)
Bouchard, Gianna. Performing Specimens: Contemporary Performance and Biomedical Display. Bloomsbury, 2019.
Charon, Rita. Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Cole, Thomas R., et al. Medical Humanities. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Fahy, Thomas R., and Kimball King eds. Peering behind the Curtain: Disability, Illness, and the Extraordinary Body in Contemporary Theater. Routledge, 2002.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. The Transformative Power of Performance. Routledge, 2008.
Foucault, Michel. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. 1963. Routledge, 2003.
Frank, Arthur W. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. University Of Chicago Press, 1995.
Gardner, Stanton B. Theatre and Medicine. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.
Hunsaker Hawkins, Anne. Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography. Purdue University Press, 1999.
Kuppers, Petra. Disability and Contemporary Performance. Routledge, 2013.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. Routledge, 2006.
Lupton, Deborah. Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease and the Body. Sage, 2012.
Mermikides, Alex, and Gianna Bouchard eds. Performance and the Medical Body. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.
Mermikides, Alex. Performance, Medicine and the Human. Bloomsbury, 2020.
Reinelt, Janelle G., and Joseph R. Roach eds. Critical Theory and Performance. University of Michigan Press, 2007.
Roman, David. Performance in America: Contemporary U.S. Culture and the Performing Arts. Duke University Press, 2005.
Sandahl, Carrie, and Philip Auslander eds. Bodies in Commotion. University of Michigan Press, 2009.
Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford University Press, 1985.
Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. Penguin UK, 2013.
