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The body of folk wisdom that encircles the history of European colonization of the Americas is both deeply flawed and widely pervasive. It’s widely enough believed that a professor I took a required class for my Latin American Studies minor with this semester, skimming over the early colonial period so that we could advance towards more modern history, repeated at face value the same stories we have heard over and over: that Aztecs believed that the Spanish were returning gods, that the Aztecs believed that Spaniards on horses were centaurs, that the Spanish were able to conquer indigenous empires simply by virtue of imported technology, and so on. I was lucky enough to have taken a class on early Latin American history before this semester and had to have been exposed to more up to date scholarship on the topic, but it bothered me that these classic truisms were being reaffirmed in a scholarly setting. This may be why I was drawn to the scene in The Tempest where Caliban, coming upon the drunk Stephano and Trinculo, believes that they are gods and swears his loyalty to them in overthrowing Prospero. In many ways, this interaction reproduces the same fallacy that began to be propagated about the Spanish/Aztec (by extension, European/Native American) conflict in the decades prior to Shakespeare’s completion of the play. Continue reading ““I will kneel to him”: Caliban’s Gods”

Parades – all of us have been to one or two at a point in our lives; they’re fun. But why do we enjoy parades, and what is the significance of them? Well, the answer to both of these questions is subjective, but to aid in understanding it is important to look at the etymology and what it means to celebrate a parade. A parade is defined as “[a] large public procession, usually including a marching band and often of a festive nature, held in honor of an anniversary, person, event, etc” by Dicitonary.com. But if we look at the origin of the word, there’s a difference in meaning. According to etymonline.com, the present-day use of the word derives from the 15^th century French word “parade,” which is an “assembly of troops for inspections.” Modern displays of parades are an agency to the performance of memory; and in the context of contemporary New Orleans and its famous Mardi Gras parade(s), the militaristic connotation of the word can be traced back to the French Quarter of the city. When we talk of the French Quarter and parades in New Orleans, we must also talk of the “Krewe du Vieux.”

Continue reading “Remembering Katrina via Satire”

During this course I have noticed more the use of Hurricane language to sell things in our capitalist market. Enter in the wonderfully awkward HurryCane commercial. (The link provided is the commercial, however, it is recorded on a phone from a television.)The commercial is an advertisement for a tool used to help, in the case of the commercial, old men walk (hurry) to catch up to gorgeous women they are missing out on. This commercial is a performance of freedom using language that has a deep juxtaposition of its actual meaning.

Continue reading “The Awkwardness of The HurryCane”

One of the first thing Beth told us when we started The Tempest by William Shakespeare was, contrary to fellow academics, Shakespeare is difficult for her, and for many others. I put myself in that category, and was very grateful to hear that from a professor. The Tempest is not simple for me, however, I have prior knowledge that I definitely utilized from the children’s show, Wishbone. Wishbone, was probably the most influential television show of my childhood. It was all about books, and not just any books, the classics or “the cannon.” Books educated people assume you have read if you are also “properly educated.” Continue reading “Shakespaw, A Wishbone Tale – The Tempest”

The English historian Horace Walpole once declared, “The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic.” In response, Joseph Roach includes in Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance the following quote: “The conception of history as a vast performance of diaspora and surrogation haunts intercultural musings such as Walpole’s, which transform invented pasts into gloriously catastrophic futures.” Colson Whitehead’s Zone One and the genre it is a part of are proof that these kind of transformations are still very much alive. Continue reading ““Gloriously Catastrophic Futures””

New Orleans is traditionally considered the home of the genre of bounce music. The city is designated as both the genre’s origin point and its continuing center. To some degree, this is true. Artists considered at the foundation of bounce music all hail from New Orleans. Bounce music maintains its prominence in the region through concerts and festivals. However, treating the genre as an entirely autochthonous product overlooks the rich network of places and identities that have shaped the musical form as we know it today. Continue reading “New Orleans Bounce: A Circum-Atlantic Performance”

I have been trying to write this post for a while now, but only recently did Professor McCoy provide me with the lens to critically think about what I am attempting to discuss in this post- containment.

I grew up on boats, yet I am terribly afraid of drowning. Starting at age four, my father and I went on canoe camping trips every year in the Adirondacks. I started sailing with him at age six, and at age ten, I learned to sail on my own. My family vacations always include water, usually going to the Thousand Islands or the Adirondacks and bringing a few of our eleven and a half boats (my dad is currently building one) with us. To add insult to injury, I was a competitive swimmer in high school. What I am trying to say is that I have absolutely no reason to be afraid of drowning. Continue reading “On Boats and Containment”