ENGL 3326 Blackness, Performance, and Freedom

From Henry Box Brown's cargo dramatics to Ellen Craft's incredible performance as a feeble white male traveling with his black servant to Brer Rabbit's feigned fear of the briar patch, artifice, and performance repeatedly serve as the necessary means, if not the conditions of possibility for, fugitive departure and black life. This course asks how masks, masquerades, con-acts, and acting enable resistance and escape. We will explore how the radical work of historical black performances continue in contemporary black performances like Danny Glover's Childish Gambino; Beyonce's Sasha Fierce; Ru Paul's Drag Race; and the increasingly popular interest in black speculative and afro futurism (i.e., Random Acts of Flyness and Get Out).