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The Caribbean is a region particularly rich in cultural performances that have been created from the fragments, often enough, of older and/other cultural conventions. Take the example of Carnival in the plantation colonies of the West Indies. Brought over by the European Catholics who migrated there as settlers, this pre-Lentan celebration underwent several transformations before emerging as a post-Emancipation Creole bacchanalia. Since then it has been progressively changing into a more commercial type of street performance, with the result that the Carnival season is now one of the mainstays of the tourism-based economies of these islands. In his 1980 play Pantomime, Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott confronts spectators with a belated intermeshing of West Indian and British cultural traditions – and the consequences thereof. Taking as his point of departure Daniel Defoe's narrative of Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday, Walcott exploits the intertextual potential of performance types by showing us what happens when characteristically British 'panto' (and music hall) performance modes allow themselves to be challenged by the competing conventions of the Trinidadian Carnival.
Please note: An integral part of this graduate seminar is an immersive study excursion being planned for the end of November/ beginning of December. Please let me know in advance what is most suitable for you. This will be a unique opportunity to devote attention to the exhibitions run by dedicated slavery museums in London and Liverpool: Museum of London's "Sugar and Slavery", National Maritime Museum's "Atlantic Worlds", and best of all, International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Talks and lectures by museum curators and experts are being scheduled so that you can gain a deeper understanding of this controversial topic. We will also be looking closely at the pantomime tradition, and especially at how Robinson Crusoe has been performed on stage.
Participation
Regular attendance and active participation in all sessions; thorough acquaintance with all the material listed above before the first session; individual research on a relevant topic of your choice for short oral presentations / group work, followed by a term paper (7500 words, in MLA format) on a larger research topic. |
