This graduate reading seminar explores theoretical frames for articulating the social, political, cultural, phenomenological and economic significance of the body. Course literature draws significantly although not exclusively from dance and performance research to consider a wide range of approaches to corporeality studies. Required reading, viewing of performance texts, and guest presentations, and workshops draw surgical attention to the body as a discursive site and to performance as a site of embodied power and potential resistance. Students contribute knowledge across a range of graduate writing genres. Course culminates in the creation of an original research project. Instructor consent required.