This talk explores how lost performance traditions of the past carried forward and bequeathed attitudes of the older world long after the performances themselves ceased. The archiving impulse of performance endured longer than the form itself and continues to shape cultural notions of identity; we know this from familiar tropes, like black-face minstrel shows of the 19th century, still emitting toxic notions of race a century after the form was discontinued. This talk will trace the long history of an older, equally toxic memory that performance preserved: Crusader cannibalism.

Professor Odai Johnson is a widely published historian of past performance traditions. His most recent book is Ruins: Classical Theatre and Broken Memory ​(2018). This talk is from his current book project, The Size of All That's Missing: Lost Performance and Deep Culture Memory.

Zoom link: https://hku.zoom.us/j/96265927457?pwd=YWU2dWtlNG0veEl1b2k0ZXFjb3ZYZz09    

Meeting ID: 962 6592 7457
Password: 692902

Live broadcast will be available in Room CRT-7.45, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU.