The ‘Exotic’ Body in 19th-century British Drama
University of
Oxford
Funded under the
2011 Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships scheme, European Commission
25-26
September 2014
Faculty
of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford
Convenor: Dr Tiziana Morosetti (Oxford)
Confirmed
speakers:
Professor Ross
Forman (Warwick), Dr Peter Yeandle (Manchester),
Dr Hazel Waters
(Institute of Race Relations, London)
Increasing
attention has been paid in recent years to the representation of the Other on the
19th-century British stage, with key studies such as Acts of
Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790-1930 (Bratton et al.
1991), The Orient on the Victorian Stage (Ziter 2003), Bodies in
Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Brooks
2006), Racism on the Victorian Stage: Representation of Slavery and the
Black Character (Waters 2007), Nineteenth-Century Theatre and the
Imperial Encounter (Gould 2011), China
and the Victorian Imagination: Empires Entwined (Forman 2013). Building
on these, the conference aims at exploring the concept, politics, and aesthetic
features of the ‘exotic’ body on stage, be it the actual body of the actor/actress
as s/he performs in genres such as the ‘Oriental’ extravaganza, or the fictional,
‘picturesque’ bodies they bring on stage. A term that in itself needs
interrogation, the ‘exotic’ will therefore be discussed addressing the visual features
that characterize the construction and representation of the Other in 19th-century
British drama, as well as the material conditions, and techniques that
accompany the ‘exotic’ on stage on the cultural and political background of
imperial Britain.
One
of the dissemination activities for the two-year project ‘The Representation of
the “Exotic” Body in 19th-century English Drama’ (REBED), funded under the 2011
Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships scheme, the conference also hopes to
function as a site for discussing the state of the art on the ‘exotic’ in the theatrical cultures of both Romantic
and Victorian Britain; contributions on ongoing research and/or recently
completed projects are therefore particularly encouraged.
Although
attention will be paid mostly to the non-European Other, papers addressing a
European ‘exotic’ are also welcome.
Topics
include the following:
Definitions of
‘exotic’:
-Is
the non-European Other on stage really ‘exotic’?
-Are
any genres more ‘exotic’ (or more liable to convey ‘exotic’ stereotypes) than
others?
-Do
different dramatis personæ and/or
settings convey different degrees of ‘otherness’?
-Can
the British on stage be ‘exotic’, and, if so, to what extent?
-Is
the spectacular on stage itself ‘exotic’?
Staging the ‘exotic’ body:
-How are costumes, make-up, scenery, movements
employed to construct the ‘exotic’?
-Are
any visual features more recurrent than others?
-To
what extent is the visual representation of the ‘exotic’ body historically accurate?
-How
does music contribute to the staging of the Other?
-Who
embodies the ‘exotic’? Is the acting career informed by bringing the Other on
stage?
-Who
were the audiences? Did their composition have an impact on the performance of
the ‘exotic’?
-Are
any experiences abroad relevant to how managers staged the Other in Britain?
-In
what ways were representations of the ‘exotic’ body informed by venues?
-The
Other on the London stage and the provinces
Cultural and
political backgrounds:
-To
what extent did audiences’ expectations affect theatrical representations of
the Other?
-In what ways do
class, gender, race inform the acting and managing of ‘exotic’ pieces?
-To
what extent did scientific and anthropological accounts inform theatrical
portraits of the Other?
-Were
illustrations of (European and/or) non-European countries informed by theatre?
-In what ways have
political narratives influenced (or been influenced by) the ‘exotic’ on stage?
-Has
the legal frame for the theatre influenced the staging of the Other?
-Visual points of contact between popular
entertainment and theatrical representations of the Other
The travelling ‘exotic’:
-How do texts such as Arabian Nights, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, or Mazeppa ‘travel’ between dramatic and non-dramatic
genres?
-Survival of a
Romantic ‘exotic’ in the Victorian staging of the Other;
-Is Othello on the Romantic and Victorian
stage ‘exotic’?
-How do translations/adaptations from
other languages contribute to the construction of the Other on the British
stage? Can we define a British specificity when it comes to the ‘exotic’?
-Has the
theatrical representation of the ‘exotic’ in Britain had an impact on
non-British stages?
The
legacy of 19th-century ‘exotic’ body:
-Contemporary
plays/performances addressing the Other on the 19th-century British
stage (e.g. Lolita Chakrabarti’s Red
Velvet)
-The
‘exotic’ body on the British stage in a diachronic perspective
-The
non-European Other in the 20th- and 21st-century
Christmas pantomime
Abstracts
of no more than 300 words and a short bio should be sent to rebedconference@gmail.com by 15 June 2014. Speakers whose abstracts have
been accepted will be notified by 25 June.
