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Browse materialsMIT 21L.016 · Spring 2009

Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance

Subjects: History · Science · Technology

Art: Gustave Doré, Gustav Doré, Satan Confronting Sin and Death at the Gates of Hell, c…, 2023 · Public domain

Instructors: Prof. Diana Henderson, Prof. Janet Sonenberg
Term: Spring 2009
Level: Undergraduate
What's inside: 1 reading · 16 other files · 4 web pages
Materials open: MIT OCW

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Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 21L.016 Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance, Spring 2009, Prof. Diana Henderson, Prof. Janet Sonenberg — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

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MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. Diana Henderson, Prof. Janet Sonenberg, 21L.016 Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance, Spring 2009.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Spring 2009 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

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Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance

Before you start

What's here, and what isn't

Not included here

Materials by section

Calendar

Readings

Assignments

Other materials from this course

Lecture 1: Introduction—to an experiment and a century. Genesis meets Galileo

Lecture 2: Discussion of Brecht’s Galileo

Lecture 3: Contextualizing Galileo ; varieties of history, improvisatory cosmologies

Lecture 4: Interpreting historical documents Special guest: historian Ann McCants

Lecture 5: A Tale of Two Lears

Lecture 6: Special event: evening film screening of Stage Beauty (Dir. Richard Eyre, 2004)

Lecture 7: Scenes read in class, more discussion of two versions of Lear within their theatrical context

Lecture 8: Five “men of science”: Bacon, Burton, Descartes, Boyle and Hobbes. Expert group presentations on each of these natural philosophers

Lecture 9: Jonsonian masque and court culture Special theatrical guest: Michael Krass, costume designer and head of design at NYU Playwrights Horizons Theater School

Lecture 10: The Roman Actor (performed 1626, published 1629)

Lecture 11: ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore (written late 1620s; published 1633)

Lecture 12: Paper writing: discussion of thesis statements based on your play-reading. Scene work

Lecture 13: The Antipodes (c. 1636, printed 1640)

Lecture 14: Reflections upon your essays, historical meltdown, and what came after; with reference to The Broken Heart, The Cardinal, The Rover, The Enchanted Island

Lecture 15: The Puritan Revolution. Discussion of research and extensive essay composition

Lecture 16: Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

Lecture 17: Special event: theatrical field trip to see Richard Goodwin’s “Two Men of Florence” at the Huntington Theater Company

Lecture 18: Playwriting, day one

Lecture 19: Playwriting, day two

Lecture 20: Sharing of documents and paper ideas

Lecture 21: Sharing of documents and paper ideas (cont.)

Lecture 22: The Country Wife

Lecture 23: Poetry of the seventeenth century

Lecture 24: Individual meetings with instructors

Lecture 25: Tony Kushner’s Hydriotaphia

Lecture 26: Discussion of your learning and sharing of your expertise

Lecture 27: Dramatic reading of selections from Adriano Shaplin’s The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes

Lecture 28: Dramatic reading from The Virtuoso and conclusions