World Conference on C A R N I V A L Showcasing the Caribbean |
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I. Carnival and Society Material production of Carnival; how is Government related to Carnival (tourism financing, national identity); Carnival as a social activity (questions of social status, its relative prestige for different sectors of the elite and non-elite); questions of ethnic competition and conflict; questions of religious support and rejection. II. Festivals and Spectacle What is the basic unit of festival organization in a given Carnival? Is it a band of people that, as in Trinidad, buys and sells costumes? Is it a neighborhood? A private society? What is the basis for grouping within the carnival? What does the sequencing of events mean? What is the basis for getting excited in the festival? Food, drink, sexuality. What is the signification of Carnival for people in terms of power (sacred or secular power)? Or wildness and letting go, being other than you are in other aspects of life - the issue of transgressions, inversions. III. Festive Forms What form(s) does Carnival take in a given location? In Trinidad, steelband, calypso, mas with their many subdivisions? What are the forms of celebration? What is the nature of Carnival music, its instrumentation, the style and form of its costumes in various traditions? Some more specific topics which have been suggested include: 1. The uses of Carnival 2. Internal contradictions/inner tensions - the dialectics of Carnival 3. The production of Carnival 4. Carnival and theater 5. Carnival and formations of national identity 6. Studying Carnival: approaches to study 7. The many histories, meanings and connotations of the word "carnival" 8. Myth and Carnival 9. The carnivalesque: redefinitions 10. Contested spaces of carnival: religion/ethnicity/class 11. "Gastos fésticos comunales" vs "el ahorro burgués" - the community and the individual in Carnival 12. Making mas, making home: the diasporic relocations of Carnival 13. The music of Carnival - topical song, musical style (at least 2 seminars) 14. Time in - Time out: The beat of bacchanal 15. Misleading ideas about Carnival 16. Cultural paradigms: African, European, Asian 17. Masks, Masquerading, and Mas in Carnival 18. Creolization 19. Denying Carnival 20. Transformations and appropriations of Piety in Carnival For more information, please contact the organizers
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