Revolution: A Performance in Three Acts

April 28, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Sakamaki Hall A201

Professor Elizabeth Colwill (91精品黑料吃瓜M American Studies) will present 芒鈧揜evolution: A Performance in Three Acts芒鈧 as the final event of this spring芒鈧劉s History Workshop series on Archives and the Practice of History.

Confronted with the limitations of traditional archival sources for our understanding of gender, slavery, and emancipation, scholars have developed strategies of reading traditional sources 芒鈧揳gainst the grain芒鈧 even as they redefine what counts as 芒鈧搕he archive.芒鈧 This talk hones in on the interpretive challenges posed by one particular site: a festival choreographed in Bourg-R脙漏g脙漏n脙漏r脙漏, France in 1794 to celebrate one extraordinary revolutionary moment芒鈧漷he abolition of slavery in the French empire. The festival at Bourg-R脙漏g脙漏n脙漏r脙漏芒鈧漚nd others like it--unfolded theatrically through a series of embodied, performative acts, both staged and unstaged. This talk interweaves formal politics and public processions, discourse and dance, history and performance theory as it places racialized and gendered bodies at the center of its archive. It suggests that reading the festivals of emancipation as performance enables new kinds of engagements with the dusty, eighteenth-century documentary record.

This event is free and open to the public.


Event Sponsor
History, Mānoa Campus

More Information
History Workshop, (808) 956-7407, histwork@hawaii.edu

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