TMA 201 - Fall 2014

HISTORIOGRAPHYThe Writing of History

HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

“What historical discourse produces are

interpretations of whatever information about and

knowledge of the past the historian commands.”

- Hayden White, Figural Realism

HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

✤ Causality of History

✤ “The writing of an event is as important if not

more important than the event itself.”

✤ Wicked – The “Wonderful” Wizard of Oz

✤ Elphaba, where I'm from, we believe all sorts

of things that aren't true. We call it - "history."

HISTORIOGRAPHY

“A man's called a traitor - or liberator

A rich man's a thief - or philanthropist

Is one a crusader - or ruthless invader?

It's all in which labelis able to persist

There are precious few at easewith moral ambiguities

So we act as though they don't exist.”

Theatre History vs.

✤ What should be studied?

✤ What is “theatre”?

✤ Highbrow/Lowbrow

✤ Theatricality

✤ Performativity

Performance Studies

Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History

✤ Discourses of history are already in history

✤ Historical discourses are bound & produced by

the cultures from which they emerge

✤ History is a practice (a discipline) and a result (a

discourse); the relation between the two is

production

01

HISTORY

From Sarah Vowell, The Partly

Cloudy Patriot

Audio 1:

Audio 2:

History

“On the first day of school when I was a kid, the guy teaching history—and it was almost always a guy, wearing a lot of brown—would cough up the pompous same old same old about how if we kids failed to learn the lessons of history then we would be doomed to repeat them. Which is true if you’re one of the people who grow up to run things, but not as practical if your destiny is a nice small life.

For example, thanks to my tenth-grade world history textbook’s chapter on the Napoleonic Wars, I know not to invade Russia in the wintertime. This information would have been good for an I-told-you-so toast at Hitler’s New Year’s party in 1943, but for me, knowing not to trudge my troops through the snow to Moscow is not so handy day-to-day.”

History

“The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories. Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey caffé mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle’s Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top. No wonder it costs so much.”

–Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

RECENT HISTORICAL APPROACHES

✤ Revisionist

✤ Feminist

✤ Deconstructionist

✤ Multicultural

✤ Gay & Lesbian

✤ Marxism & Class-Oriented

TEXTS AS HISTORICAL

EVIDENCE

✤ Texts survive their historical moment. We can use them to “read” those cultures.

✤ What do we mean by “texts”?✤ Scripts✤ Elements of Theatre✤ Performative Styles✤ Philosophical Works

✤ Use surviving texts to discover “ideologies”✤ Beliefs that inform or influence what and how people think,

understand, and behave✤ Generally, people do not even recognize the influence or

presence of the ideology; it is unstated.

What are theatre historians trying to “recover”?

✤ A playing space

✤ The audience

✤ The performers

✤ Visual elements

✤ Texts

✤ Coordination of the elements

✤ Social requirements

ON THE ORIGINS OF

✤ Imitation, role playing, and storytelling

✤ Popular entertainment

✤ Ceremonies and rituals

✤ Abydos Passion Play, 2500-550 b.c.e.✤ Indigenous Ritual in Latin America

✤ Efficaciousness & Methexis

✤ “Participatory” theatre

✤ Prohibition of theatre

THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE

TMA 201 - Fall 2014

HISTORIOGRAPHYThe Writing of History