Ritual Imports is a groundbreaking cultural history of European performance traditions in the New World, from the sixteenth century to the present. Claire Sponsler examines the role of survivals and adaptations of medieval drama in shaping American culture from colonization through nation building and on to today’s multicultural society. The book’s subjects include New Mexican matachines dances and Spanish conquest drama, Albany’s Pinkster festival and Afro-Dutch religious celebrations, Philadelphia’s mummers and the Anglo-Saxon revival, a Brooklyn Italian American saint’s play, American and German passion plays, and academic reconstructions of medieval drama. Drawing on theories of cultural appropriation, Ritual Imports makes an important contribution to medieval and American studies as well as to cultural studies and the history of theater.
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Book Description
Throughout the Americas, performances deriving from medieval European rituals, ceremonies, and festivities made up a crucial part of the cultural cargo shipped from Europe to the overseas settlements. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed from Plymouth England to Newfoundland, bringing with him "morris dancers, hobby horses, and Maylike Conceits" for the "allurement of the savages" and the "solace of our people." His voyage closely resembled that of twelve Franciscan friars who in 1524 had arrived in what is now Mexico armed with a repertoire of miracle plays, religious processions, and other performances. These two events, although far from unique, helped to shape initial encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples; they also marked the first stages of the process that would lead—by no means smoothly—to a distinctively American culture.
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About the Author
Claire Sponsler is Professor of English at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Drama and Resistance: Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late Medieval England and coeditor of East of West: Cross-Cultural Performance and the Staging of Difference.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
The history of the matachines dance begins with the Spanish conquest of the Pueblo Indians in 1540 and the expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado into New Mexico, although the fate of the Pueblos had arguably already been sealedand many of the conditions for the implanting of the matachines dance already established when Cortés vanquished the Aztecs some twenty years earlier. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New Year, New York, Black Hills, New Mexico, Tulip Fest, New World, San Francisco, Pinkster Hill, Old World, African Americans, African-American Pinkster, Albany Centinel, Corpus Christi, Public Ledger, Josef Meier, Lake Wales, Saint Paulinus, World War, Eighth Street, King Charles, Middle Ages, Morse's Passion, New Mexican, Ritual Imports New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The history of the matachines dance begins with the Spanish conquest of the Pueblo Indians in 1540 and the expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado into New Mexico, although the fate of the Pueblos had arguably already been sealedand many of the conditions for the implanting of the matachines dance already established when Cortés vanquished the Aztecs some twenty years earlier. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New Year, New York, Black Hills, New Mexico, Tulip Fest, New World, San Francisco, Pinkster Hill, Old World, African Americans, African-American Pinkster, Albany Centinel, Corpus Christi, Public Ledger, Josef Meier, Lake Wales, Saint Paulinus, World War, Eighth Street, King Charles, Middle Ages, Morse's Passion, New Mexican, Ritual Imports New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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- Cities of the Dead by Joseph Roach on 4 pages
- The Spanish Frontier in North America (The Lamar Series in Western History) by David J. Weber in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Logic of Practice by Pierre Bourdieu et al. in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland: Essays in Anthropology, Folklore, and History by Herbert Halpert in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. The Clarendon Lectures and the Carpenter Lectures 1988: The Clarendon Lectures and the Carpenter Lectures, 1988 (Clarendon Paperbacks) by Stephen J. Greenblatt in Front Matter, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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