WHAT SORT OF ESSAY MIGHT YOU WRITE?

(The following are suggested approaches. you are welcome to conceive of other starting points.)

1. An essay which presents a performance example which is interesting to think about in relation to theoretical material / ideas we have studied. The theoretical material might help illuminate something about the performance, or the performance might present challenges or complications for the theoretical material.

2. An essay which takes up one of the core theoretical ideas covered in the module – such as liveness, presence, anti-theatrical thought, the state, race, gender, utopia – and presents a critical overview of key debates as a way of developing a position of its own.

3. An essay that considers theoretical material we have studied in its historical or cultural specificity: why was this sort of theorisation useful or necessary at a particular time; how did it relate to other cultural and intellectual developments at the time of its appearance?

4. An essay that contrasts some distinctive theoretical approaches; identifies unexpected commonalities or differences between them.

5. An essay that takes one of the theoretical resources we have looked at and considers how it has influenced subsequent thought and/or theatre and performance practice.

6. An essay that asks what theatre and performance theory could contribute to other critical projects: such as the study of race, gender or history (or music, or architecture, or literature).