Focused Discussions
University of San Jorge
The Benin Bronzes: The Necessary Reevaluation of Museums and Law for Repatriation View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Jennifer Coury
The repatriation of the Benin Bronzes is a multifaceted historical, social, and political issue in the art world. The artifacts contain the pre-colonial history of the Edo people in the form of statues, plaques, and ornamental figures, which the British Empire looted following the Benin Massacre of 1897. Since 1897, the history and culture of the Edo people continue to fill museum collections as spoils of war. The ongoing effort to repatriate the Bronzes calls attention to the lasting impact of colonialism on museums as institutions and their societal role. As purveyors of culture, should museums be required to evolve with the rest of society? The case could be made that such changes are essential to a museum's authenticity. Museums' responsibilities must go beyond the need to revise descriptive plaques and reconfigure displays. Furthermore, the inability of the Edo people to claim proprietary rights to the Benin Bronzes exposes a system that perpetuates cultural violence. Existing cultural property laws focus on antiquities and objects displaced during World War II, but a sizable grey area surrounds colonial-era theft and damage. Today's cultural property laws allow for a continued lack of accountability amongst museums and governments holding artifacts looted during colonialism. Museums and cultural property laws must address this grey area to achieve restitution. The case for the repatriation of the Benin Bronzes underscores the importance of cultural restitution and the amendment of cultural property laws to the decolonization of art history.
Featured The Living Newspaper 2.0: A New Hybrid of Traditional Living Newspaper Forms View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Julie Labagnara
My research is focused on developing a new Living Newspaper format. By comparing and contrasting Federal Theatre Project plays to the writing and devising techniques from a longstanding contemporary theatre company and the model of a devised play created in a prison context, I warrive at a new hybrid approach to creating political theatre. My dissertation considers the following question: How can the Living Newspaper be resurrected into a contemporary model that is able to stimulate political discourse on current socio-political issues? My dissertation begins with the comprehensive analysis of plays and the historical elements surrounding the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper form. I then compare the FTP’s approach with the updated newspaper-style playwriting of the later San Francisco Mime Troupe, with the specific devising method used to create the play, The Crossroads: A Prison Cabaret (by William Head on Stage). Through these analyses I gather new techniques and strategies for the creation of a contemporary Living Newspaper play. I then create my own newspaper play and production; its goal is to examine, confront, and expose how society treats women of all races and sexualities. The scenes address contemporary issues faced by straight, gay, and transgender women of all races. Living Newspaper plays and performances are key educational tools that can be used both in a classroom setting as well as on a national stage as their use of historical and current events educate people on important social issues of our times.
