Expanding Perspectives
Jagiellonian University
The Postcolonial Metaphor of Caliban in the Cultural Production of the Cuban Revolution (1970s): Nativism, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lester Tome
Roberto Fernández Retamar’s essay “Caliban: Notes Toward a Discussion of Culture in Our America” (1971) stands as a seminal text of postcolonial studies in Latin America. In this and other articles from the same period, the Cuban poet and literary critic analyzes the fraught relation between Latin America’s hybrid national cultures and the European heritage that remains a fundamental element of those cultures, acting as a constant reminder of the colonial past. In discussing the post-colonies’ problematic and indissoluble bond with the former colonizer’s culture, Retamar turns to the metaphor of Caliban—the subjugated indigenous character from an American island in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who expresses in a European language his repudiation of the European master who forced that language on him. This presentation historicizes Retamar’s theses as an expression of debates on culture and ideology among artists and intellectuals in the context of the Cuban Revolution’s postcolonial politics in the 1960s-70s. I turn to the repertoire of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba to establish the influence of the Caliban metaphor on the Revolution’s cultural policy and the philosophy of arts organizations from that era. I highlight the choreography of Alberto Méndez’s El río y el bosque (1973), which hybridized ballet and dances from the Afro-Cuban santería religion. Méndez’s ballet evinced the calibanesque strategies through which the Ballet Nacional de Cuba approached two crucial postcolonial challenges: 1) articulating cultural nationalism within a traditionally European genre, and 2) reconciling cosmopolitan and nationalist impulses while avoiding the pitfalls of nativism.
Exploring German Perspectives of the “Wild West” through the Lens of the Karl May Theatre Festival View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elisabeth Hostetter
Karl May’s masculine, aggressive literary/theatrical vision of the “wild west” has enduringly influenced German perceptions of U.S. cultural identify, foreign policy, and landscape. German author Karl May (1842-1912) never visited American but wrote 18 adventure novels featuring a friendship between a German immigrant, “Old Shatterhand,” and his Apache blood-brother Winnetou, who fight for justice in the Oregon Trail territory. Over 100 years later, May’s novels and subsequent performance adaptations still frame the way many Germans contextualize the U.S as a romanticized land rife with gun-toting, culturally naïve, and fiercely independent cowboys. His work is memorialized at an annual outdoor production in Bad Segeberg based on the Winnetou saga. The productions, staged in an open-air theatre that accommodates 14,000 spectators, have drawn hundreds of thousands of viewers every year for the past 70 years. Given the ever-shifting international German/US relationship, exploring May’s framing of American identity proves interesting and timely.
The Social-political Role of Art through Greece's Civil War (1946-1949) and Exile (1946-1967): Art and Politics View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eleni Linardou
The present study starts from observations about the social-political and ideological context of artistic creation in the first post-war period, which is largely connected to the emphasis of the individuality or "Art for Art", at least in the Western world. This promotes the autonomy of the works which distances the artist from society; we are going to highlight the complexity of art, its highest value, putting aside the decorative character of art and “Art for Art” too. Art becomes part of a social conversation, promotes political criticism, propaganda, public awakening, production for the creator and the world. In order to understand that point of view we study artworks by artists who lived in the darkness of war. The whole study is important and protoype because it is the first entirely (complete) review of the political-social point of view of the Greek Civil art, being the first doctor who started the systematic research and of course it has value because we always rely on primary material. Indicatively, Greek Archive of Contemporary Social History, Greek Directorate of Army History, the War Museum of Athens, etc.; as well as art magazines of the time such as the "Art review", "People's Speech", "Libra", etc.
Arts Practice in the Service of Transformative Justice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sarah Bartley
In the UK, a succession of incidents of police violence and sexual abuse, institutional racism, and corruption have brought to the fore calls for alternative responses to harm than those offered by the state. Communities are increasingly suspicious of the criminal justice system and need different approaches that involves local, culturally informed stakeholders and which moves toward equity and liberation. Transformative Justice theory and practice is built on the premise that state responses to violence reproduce violence and traumatize people, especially communities who are otherwise oppressed, marginalised or dispossessed (Mingus, 2015). Transformative Justice seeks to develop community accountability and engagement to challenge unequal and intersecting power relationships and promotes a bottom-up understanding of the lives and needs of populations (Gready and Robins, 2020) without relying on the state. This paper shares emerging findings from ‘Transformative justice, women with convictions and uniting communities’, a two year arts-based research project exploring the potential of creative writing, performance and audio workshops to explore transformative justice practices with communities. Based in Stoke on Trent (UK), the project specifically works with women with experience of the criminal justice system and local residents with an interest in reimagining what justice might look like in their own communities. As one of the lead facilitators, in this paper I reflect on the emerging findings from our first year of workshops with a particular focus on how creative practice enables us to both sit with differences in perspective on justice and interrogate imaginaries of justice in our local communities.
