Performance and Pedagogy: the ‘Signifying Monkey’ and the Educative I/Eye

Abstract

In the Drama Department at the University of Hull, year three students are invited to opt for their final year academic modules. There are a range of academic options available at any one time, most of which are linked to areas of staff research and specialization. In this way, academic modules are spaces in which staff are able to engage in processes of teaching, research and exploration alongside the students. Popular African American Theatre is one such academic option that I have offered. This chapter is an attempt to discuss the students’ responses to the module, as well as my subsequent analysis of the dynamic inter relations between the subject matter of African American theatre history, the students and the lecturer. I am interested to explore the ways in which the pedagogic situation re-enacted various elements of theatre and theatre history which were under critical analysis on the module and, in particular, the ways in which I came to understand that the historian is not so dissimilar to the playwright, and the lecturer not dissimilar to the actor.