Department of History
Carleton University
HIST 5702W: Narrativity and Performance in Public History
Fridays 9:30-12:30 436PA, occasionally 433PA if available
Winter Term 2013-2014
Professor Dr David Dean, 444PA
Office hours: Fridays 1-2, or as arranged.
Tel. 520 2600, ext. 2822
Email. david_dean@carleton.ca
‘History – the past transformed into words or paint or dance, or play – is always a
performance.’(Greg Dening, 2002)
Introduction
Historians have always sought new ways of exploring, presenting and re-presenting the
past, but recently a new awareness has emerged in our discipline of what might be called
the performative turn, one championed by historians such as Greg Dening, Natalie
Zemon Davis and Robert Rosenstone. Whether actors representing the past in feature
films, television dramas or plays on stage, re-enactors in living history sites or costumed
interpreters in museums and heritage buildings, performance strategies and techniques
have shaped the stories we tell. More challenging perhaps, they also require us to ask
why we tell them and what we hope to achieve in the telling. We will begin by
considering theories of narrativity and performativity and the ways in which these inform
historical understanding and practice. We will then explore a variety of historical
performances, varied both in time and space but also in form. This experience will
provide you with a toolset with which to explore forms of historical representation
shaped by your own interests and concerns. Our common aim will be to reach an
understanding of how historians have gained new insights into the past through
performance.
Goals
My aims in teaching this course are:
• To help you become familiar with some of the approaches historians have used in
telling stories about the past.
• To give you an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the theory and practice of
historical narrative and performance.
• To provide an opportunity to consider different forms of historical performance.
• To invite you to discuss these issues with others both in the classroom and
beyond.
• To enable you to draw on the theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of
the course in a way that will be useful for your own work and area of interest.
Organisation
We will normally meet for three hours on Friday mornings but there will be relevant talks
and events outside normal class time. The seminar has three distinct but related
components:
1. Exploration of Key Themes
At our first meeting we'll consider what we mean by storytelling, and then continue to
explore a variety of issues in the emerging literature on the narrativity and performance in
public history. In class discussion will on occasion be supported by guest visitors
involved in various forms of historical performance or by in class activities.
2. Case Studies
We will engage with several ways in which historians and others represent and seek
meaning in and through the past by shaping narratives in a variety of performances. We
will explore the visual art of Sharon Hayes and Dennis Tourbain, a play by Hannah
Moscovitch, and a Holocaust cabaret re-constructed by theatre and performance studies
scholar Lisa Peschel, as well as feature film, reality history television, documentary, reenactment and living history performances, even virtual reality on Web 2.0.
3. Projects
Each of you will have the opportunity to present to the class a poster of your final project.
A discussant will provide collegial comment and suggestions for developing the paper, as
will the class as a whole. To help the class and discussant prepare for these sessions,
presenters will provide a 2-page (double spaced) summary of the proposed paper one
week in advance and something for the class to think about beforehand. Each session will
end with a promenade encouraging dialogue.
Assessment
Assessment for this course involves three components: participation, performance, and
a final paper. Attendance at all course sessions is expected unless arrangements have
been made.
The participation component (10%) requires each of you to:
• Participate in discussion each week.
• Work with others to introduce the readings to the seminar.
• Present a poster of your proposed final paper.
• Act as a discussant for another student’s poster presentation.
Completion of all participation components will be assessed as an A grade. Incomplete
participation will result in a grade reduction for each component missed.
The performance element of the course (30%) will consist of your producing an original
historical work based on one of our case studies. These might take the form of an online
web review or blog or interactive game, a podcast, a short film, a short play or some other
sort of performance (music, dance), an artwork etc.
The final paper (60%) should be between 15 and 20 pages of text (Times New Roman,
pt 12, double spaced), plus references, and is due on April 26, 2012). Alternative
suggestions to a final paper are welcome, indeed encouraged. For example, you might
want the final paper to be a reflection on your performance piece or you might want it to
be an extension of the performance itself with a critical reflection element to it.
Please Note: this assessment structure is not written in stone and can be re-negotiated
once we have a chance to meet and discuss the aims and themes of the course.
HIST 5702W Narrativity and Performance in Public History
Topics/Readings
Week One (Jan 10): The Truth about Stories
Thomas King, The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative (Toronto: House of Anansi,
2003) 1-60 or listen online at
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey-archives/2003/11/07/massey-lectures-2003-the-truthabout-stories-a-native-narrative/
Week Two (Jan 17): Theorizing Narrativity
Marie-Laurie Ryan, ‘Toward a definition of narrative’ in David Herman (ed) The
Cambridge Companion to Narrative (2007)
Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical
Representation (1987) – preface, chapter 1 'The Value of Narrativity in the
Representation of Reality'
Hayden White, ‘Historiography and Historiophoty’, American Historical Review, 93
(1988) 1193-1199.
Week Three (Jan 24) : Theorizing Performance
James Loxley, Performativity (2007) – chapter 7 'Performativity and Performance
Theory'
Greg Dening, ‘Performing on the Beaches of the Mind: An Essay’ History and Theory,
41.1 (December 2002) 1-24
Greg Dening, Performances (1996) – chapter ‘The Theatricality of History Making’,
103-27.
Week Four (Jan 31): HiStorytelling: Narrativity and Performance
Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History (1988) – chapter 1, section ‘History, Discourse
and Reality’, 35-36 (or through to 49)
Re-engage with readings from weeks two and three
Week Five (Feb 7): Acts of Transfer: Text, Body, Image
Before Break: Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing Cultural
Memory in the Americas (2003) – chapter 1 'Acts of Transfer'
After Break: Visit to Carleton University Art Gallery (meet there at 11): Dennis Tourbin
and Sharon Hayes exhibits
Week Six (Feb 14): Staging the Past: Theatre and Living History Museums
Freddie Rokem, Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in
Contemporary Theatre (2000) – intro, chapter 4 ‘theatrical energies’.
David Dean, 'Theatre: A Neglected Site of Public History?', The Public Historian, 34. 3
(Summer 2012), pp. 21-39.
Amy M. Tyson, ‘Men with Muskets and Me in My Bare Feet: Performing History and
Policing Gender at Historic Fort Snelling Living History Museum’ in Scott Magelsson
and Rhona Justice-Malloy (eds) Enacting History (2011)
Reading Week (Feb 21): No Class!
Week Seven (Feb 28): Reel History: Feature Film, Documentary, Reality TV
John Greyson, ‘Mr. Blank gets Concretized’ in Mark Cheetham (et. al. eds) Editing the
Image (2008)
Robert A. Rosenstone, ‘History in Images/History in Words’, chapter 1 of his Visions of
the Past: The Challenge of Film to our Idea of History (1995)
Natalie Zemon Davis, '"Any resemblance to persons living or dead": film and the
challenge of authenticity', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 8.3 (January,
1988), 269-83, and 'Movie or Monograph? A Historian/Filmmaker's Perspective', The
Public Historian, 25.3 (August, 2003), 45-8.
Week Eight (Mar 7): Performing History: Bodies, Voices, Things
Guest: Jennifer Boyes-Manseau, performance and theatre specialist, former director of
Dramamuse, Canadian Museum of Civilization
Underhill Graduate Colloquium meets March 6, 7, and 8: sessions on Performing
History, Memory, Digital Media, Place and Space.
Week Nine (Mar 14): The Power of Storytelling:
Guest: Ruth Stewart-Verger: Ottawa Storytellers
Ruth Stewart-Verger, 'In God Knows Where: Marie-Anne Lagimodiére in Story and
Song' (CD, available from me)
Della Pollock, ‘Moving histories: performance and oral history’ in Tracy C. Davis (ed),
The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies (2008)
Week Ten (Mar 21): Performing the Holocaust: The Terezin Ghetto Cabaret
Guest (through skype): Dr Lisa Peschel, Department of Theatre, University of York, UK
Lisa Peschel, 'Performing Captivity, Performing Escape' (as .pdf through CU Learn or
book in Library if accessed and processed in time)
Week Eleven (Mar 28): Project Posters & Performances
Individual meetings with me
Week Twelve (Saturday Apr 5): Full Day of Performances and Project Posters
================
Additional Events:
There are a number of events happening during the term that I hope all of us will be able
to attend, or at least as many of us as possible. This list is only the beginning.....
Tuesday 4 February, time tbd
Sharon Hayes: artist's talk at CUAG
Fri 14 Feb, 8pm
This is War, by Hannah Moscovitch GCTC, 8pm
Monday 3 March, 7pm
Dennis Tourbin Panel Discussion at CUAG,
Thurs 27 March, 2.30-4pm
'Possessed by Theatre: "The Dybbuk" at Habima,
1922', public lecture by Professor Freddie Rokem,
Tel Aviv University at Academic Hall, University
of Ottawa
Thurs 3 April, 7:30pm
Seeds, starring Eric Peterson, English Theatre NAC