Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Bizet’s opera “Carmen,” in its day, complicated ideologies on race, gender, and sexuality in the image and body of the exotic woman seeking freedom and pleasure in a space informed by control, yet disguised by love. Racializing “Carmen,” situating her in another region, another language, and another time, not only recalls the intensity of the opera; it also raises questions about cultural and artistic appropriations and authenticity. The four Carmen variations I will discuss, two African and two African American variations, all adhere to Bizet’s basic story; nevertheless, by blackening, via language and spaces, this story, these variations complicate and re-fashion the desire and reasonability for global feminism. With references to Esmeralda, the Hottentot Venus, Aunt Jemina, and the so-called video vixen, my paper explores the problematic of exoticism and race as displayed in all four of the operatic renditions of black “Carmen.”