ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the use of performative approaches to teaching. The inspirations are many, including the early work of Freire and Boal, along with Foucault's metaphor of the "docile body", which reminds people that resistance to oppression must be embodied. Multiple works on the performed character of gender, homosexuality, race, and disability have also encouraged teaching as performance as a means for social change. Ken has asked students in some of his advanced classes to abandon the traditional term paper, and to generate a "term performance" in whatever form they wished. In 2008, people joined communication scholar Stuart Schrader in publishing a reader in interpersonal communication. One of the readings everyone hoped to include was an excerpt from a conversation between Queen Latifah and a group of adolescents. They wanted to use the reading to generate discussion on the body as communication, and the problems of being overweight.