Christopher Martin, Ph.D.
Writer + Content Creator

THR xxx - Performing Power and Individualism on American and German Stages

Proposed Course

Performing Power and Individualism on American and German Stages takes an intersectional, interdisciplinary, and intertextual approach to whiteness, critical race theory, and transnationalism. In light of the intertwined history of the United States and Germany for over 200 years, this course sets out to examine the contemporary moment in light of this history. This course will apply theory to theatre texts, performances, audio-visual materials, and other writings. This course consists of six modules that attempt to examine how whiteness works to remain a non-racialized subject position in order to protect and reify expectations of white privilege. Since whiteness uses “the other” in order to define itself, this course will rely and lean upon non-white voices to mark whiteness. Because whiteness persists in the contemporary, this course will identify and examine strategies for marking, unmasking, and undermining whiteness.



Module 2 (part 2) - Late 20th Century American and German Performance

In the section part of module 2, which examines whiteness in the last half of the 20th century, we read David Roediger's Colored White, and Eric Goldstein's The Price of Whiteness. We were able to examine in which ways masculinity surfaced in these works, as well as in Mamet's Oleanna and the documentary Hollywoodism. In addition to, or in place of, the prompts in the syllabus, how is masculinity linked to whiteness? Use this opportunity to even pull in past modules. For instance, how does masculinity, as linked to whiteness, remain unmarked?

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