The starting point for this course is the assumption that performance is a concrete social event, which therefore participates in a multi-faceted manner in the power-structures of its surrounding culture. At the same time, performance is always grounded in the body – which is in itself a political site upon which struggles and fantasies are impressed. In light of these social and corporeal dimensions, the course will offer an acquaintance with some of the prominent theories in cultural criticism and their relation to theatrical performance: feminist, queer, post-colonial, and post-secular theories. We will focus not only on the ways in which these theories shed light on performance – but also on the images and models borrowed by them from the fields of theatre and drama (mask, mimicry, drag, performance, Shakespeare).