DRAMA 708 explores a range of topics including ideas of loss, memory, trauma, sexuality, power, identity, hatred, violence, guilt and emotion. This course also seeks to study why theatre presents an exemplary location to explore the relationship between the mind and the body. The first six weeks focus on applying Freudian and Kleinian theories of subject formation to dramatic texts, with particular focus on Oedipal theory, on theories of the Superego and on Klein’s theory of artistic creation. The final six weeks investigate the appropriation of myth, the rewriting of history, the re-inventing of national identity and the recreation of memory and of traumatic events. Sexual politics and gender identity will be addressed using theoretical work of Judith Butler and Julia Kristeva. The final week studies a recent theory of acting and a play that uses the insights of cognitive neuroscience. Alongside seminar discussions, practical seminars will examine character psychology in relation to physical environment and movement.