DRA349 - Theatre and the Supernatural - 2023/24

The dead live. In a range of different theatre and performance cultures, performers and spectators either embody or come face to face with the dead. In this module we will explore how this happens in different historical moments and in different cultures, including, for example, the ghosts, witches and magicians of early modern European drama, spirit possession in Haitian Vodou, spiritualist séances in Victorian England. Through the comparative study of these cultural forms we will consider how different conceptions of the natural and the supernatural have been shaped by theatre and performance practices.