Obermann Summer 2005 Research Seminar
July 6-16

Schedule  •  Participants

Directors:

Loyce L. Arthur, Associate Professor, Theatre Arts, The University of Iowa - "Carnival Traditions, Religion, and Politics in the Philippines"

Michaeline A. Crichlow, Associate Professor, African-American World Studies, The University of Iowa - "Power and its Subjects: Political Masqueraders of the Caribbean"

Carnival may be defined as street theatre enacted by individuals with a wide range of creative and political agendas. Literal and metaphorical masking and unmasking occur on several levels and in various interstices. We will examine different kinds of carnival events — from officially recognized formal carnivals such as those in Venice or Trinidad that represent nationalist agendas and are commodified accordingly, to informal carnivals, or carnivalesque performances such as Black Indian parades during Mardi Gras that have developed from or on the fringes of formal carnivals, to visual and performing artists who have used carnival themes in their work. The seminar will focus on the interrelationships of symbols and the meanings of carnival events from around the world. This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the changing meaning of the aesthetics and cultural politics of carnival interpreted broadly as the clash of cultural meanings and practices between social actors.

How, we will ask together, has migration influenced the carnival performances and peoples’ participation? If carnival reveals the public secrets and fantasies of a society, how might these have shifted over time? How have the changing conceptions of citizenship and relationships to the nation-state affected the production and performances of carnival and carnival events? How have overseas/diaspora carnivals and re-imagined aesthetic traditions interacted with those from the original ‘homelands’ as is the case with Caribbean carnivals? Is carnival as democratic as proclaimed?

Participants

Piers Armstrong, Assistant Professor, Spanish and Portuguese, Dartmouth College - "The Symbolic Logic of Bahian Carnival: Race, Politics and Cultural Syncretism"

Judith Bettelheim, Professor, Art History, San Francisco State University - "How Are Historical Texts Maintained and Transferred in Caribbean Carnivals: A Case of the Haitian Presence in Cuban Carnaval"

Lawrence M. Bogad, Assistant Professor, Theatre and Dance, University of California at Davis - "Carnivals Against Capital: Radical Clowning and the Global Justice Movement"

Lesley K. Ferris, Professor, Theatre, Ohio State University - " 'Playing Mas' in Port of Spain and London: A Mandate for Theatre? "

Mary Hufford, Director, Center for Folklore and Ethnography, University of Pennsylvania - "Carnival Time in the Kingdom of Coal"

Kristen McCleary, Assistant Professor, History, James Madison University - "Ethnic Identity and Elite Idyll: A Comparison of Carnival Celebrations in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, 1890 to 1910"

Philip Whalen, Assistant Professor, History, Coastal Carolina University - " Carnival as Social Text and Theory: Why the Popular Front Suppressed Dijon's Popular ‘Mère-Folle' "

Schedule