FYS: Courses
 

 
Contact FYS
 
 

300 Steele Building
CB# 3504
UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
27599-3504

email: fys@unc.edu
phone: (919)843-7773

 
 


Course Descriptions

Dramatic Art

DRAM 080 [006K]: The Psychology of Clothing: Motivations for Dressing-up and Dressing-down
Communication Intensive (CI); Visual or Performing Arts (VP) [GC Aesthetic/Fine Arts]
Bobbi Owen

Through traditional and innovative teaching methods, the course will seek to help students find ways to articulate their own motivations for dress and then apply the ideas they have discovered to the ways in which individuality as well as group attitudes are expressed through clothing. The class will begin "on location" wherever clothing is worn throughout the community. In the classroom students will discuss readings from basic texts to create a shared vocabulary. They will also discover common (and occasionally uncommon) motivations for dress, not only in our own culture, but in others in the world today as well as during selected historical periods. Working in pairs or small groups, the students will make class presentations and create web sites to share findings about the visual messages conveyed by clothing. A seminar paper presented both orally and in writing will be the culmination of the term.

DRAM 081 [006K]: Staging America: The American Drama
Communication Intensive (CI); North Atlantic World (NA); Visual and Performing Arts (VP) [GC Aesthetic/Fine Arts]
Gregory Kable

This seminar in American drama will examine our nation from its colonial origins to the present. Participants will read plays and criticism, screen videos, engage in critical writing, and attend live performances as a means of exploring the visions and revisions that constitute American dramatic history. The course will consider American drama as both a literary and commercial art form, and look to its history to provide a context for current American theater practice. The focus throughout will be on the forces that shaped American drama as well as drama's ability to shed light on the national experience.

DRAM 082 [006K]: "All the World's a Stage": Drama As a Mirror of Society
Communication Intensive (CI); Literary Arts (LA) [GC Aethetic/Fine Arts]
Karen Blansfield

How does theatre reflect contemporary culture, religion, and politics? What can we learn about the world we live in my attending plays? This course examines how theatre evolves from and reflects the society that generates it, and how understanding the society can enrich our responses to plays. Knowing what role the gods played in the lives of the ancient Greeks helps illuminate the world about which Sophocles wrote. Understanding the history and ethics of the atomic bomb can illuminate Michael Frayn's powerful play, Copenhagen. Classes will be discussion oriented, with some lecture material, as well as videos, Internet technology, and guest speakers. Student performance will be assessed through class participation, journals, exams, and group presentations.

DRAM 083: Spectacle in the Theatre
Communication Intensive (CI); Visual and Performing Arts (VP)
Eric Ketchum
How does the theatrical designer use spectacle to help create a play or musical? The seminar examines the three major theatrical design areas, scenery, costumes and lighting, in a combination of presentational format and hands-on experience. It is intended as an overview for students who want to learn about design but who may prefer to act or direct, or (even) attend or study plays. Two plays (Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer and Macbeth by Shakespeare) will be carefully considered within the context of stage spectacle, that is to say for requirements concerning scenery, costumes and lighting. Careful historical research, close reading and analysis, text and source material, collaboration, and budget considerations will all be considered.

DRAM 084: The Inherent Qualities of Theatrical Space
Visual and Performing Arts (VP); Communication Intensive (CI)
Robert Long
This course examines the tangible and intangible elements that contribute to the theatricality of space. How do spaces that are not traditional theaters possess or create a sense of theatricality? How does a space inform or affect what goes on inside it? Students will visit many of the traditional and non-traditional space used for performances and presentations on the UNC campus; will read primary source material discussing aspects of the theatrical space; will meet with theatre directors and designers from the Playmakers repertory Company to discuss aspects of performance space. The students will divide into working groups to research a selected scene and choose a non-theatrical space in which they will perform the scene. Students will also rehearse and perform the scene on the stages of the Paul Green Theatre and Kenan Studio Theatre and note the differences in the experience of the performers and audience in a traditional theatre versus the non-theatrical space.

DRAM 085: Documentary Theatre
Visual and Performing Arts (VP); Experiential Education (EE); North Atlantic World (NA)
Ashley Lucas
This seminar explores the political and social ramifications of documentary theatre in the U.S. from the 1990s to the present. We will spend the first half of the semester studying interview techniques and reading examples of documentary theatre by playwrights such as Anna Deavere Smith, Culture Clash, and Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theatre Project. In the second half of the semester, the students will investigate a local community of their choosing and create an interview-based performance as a final project. The class will perform this play for an invited audience at the end of the semester.

Course Information
Current Courses
Upcoming Courses
Course Descriptions