Part I: Hearing the Room
Unit 4: The Tragicomic Blues and the Minstrel Mask
Monday September 14 and Wednesday September 16
Can pain remain audible inside laughter, and can a performer wear an inherited mask without being consumed by it?
Content notice: Minstrelsy and blackface studied as assigned text
This Unit studies minstrelsy and blackface as historical and comic material. We analyze the mask and its costs; we do not celebrate it.
Orientation
The blues is the governing key of this course: a minor key that keeps pain audible inside laughter rather than erasing it. Blues is a method, not a mood. Standing in the work is not yet singing.
What this Unit teaches
- blues as form, hermeneutic, and disposition
- living in a minor key
- double consciousness and sorrow songs
- dignity, defiance, dissonance
- hope versus optimism
- pain residue after laughter
- standing is not yet singing
- mask and persona
- status
- structural oppression
- target, circulation, audience, and wrong-laugh analysis
The rest of this Unit unlocks when you enroll.
The orientation above stays open. The Monday and Wednesday work, the readings, the Labs, and the deliverable unlock with an account, an active Studio subscription, and your course access code.
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