Thinking, Scripting, and Performing: Constructing and Playing the Racial Synecdoche in the Antebellum North

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dc.contributor.advisorNathans, Heather Sen_US
dc.contributor.authorJones, Douglas Anthonyen_US
dc.contributor.departmentTheatreen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2007-06-22T05:38:38Z
dc.date.available2007-06-22T05:38:38Z
dc.date.issued2007-05-06
dc.description.abstractIn my thesis, I argue that between the years of 1830-1842, free African Americans scripted and performed what I term, following historian Patrick Rael, the racial synecdoche. This "character" was a black performative identity that people of color should play on the public stage. The performance team--or those who scripted and performed this new black identity--believed that the performance of the synecdoche would grant free people of color eligibility to perform full civic participation in America's nascent democracy. In this study, I consider the national black conventions of the 1830s as ritualistic sites and as the primary loci where that self-scripting process took place. I characterize this thesis as an intellectual history and hope that it contributes to the vital and ever-growing bodies of African American history and African American theatre and performance history, as well as add contour and complexity to the well-charted Jacksonian period.en_US
dc.format.extent787222 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/6970
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledTheateren_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledHistory, Blacken_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledNational Black Conventionsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledRitualen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAfrican American Performanceen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAfrican American Historyen_US
dc.titleThinking, Scripting, and Performing: Constructing and Playing the Racial Synecdoche in the Antebellum Northen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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