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Semester 1

Carnival in the Atlantic World: Play, Power and Politics (HIST10479)

Subject

History

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 History courses at grade B or above, and please note that we will only consider courses with a specific focus on History (not including History of Art) towards these pre-requisites. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

The social and cultural history of the development of Carnival celebrations in the Atlantic World reflects the 'violent formation of the African Diaspora' (Carby, 2019). In this course we will explore Carnival in historical context and across multiple sites in the Atlantic world, from colonial Trinidad in the 1880s to London in the 1970s. Using Carnival as a lens, we will examine key themes and concepts in Black History: gender, race and class; creolisation in music and culture and urban space as a cultural battle ground.

Course Description

To begin we will consider what Carnival in the Americas is: its origins in Europe and Africa; then move on to consider Carnival as a site of play, satirical subversion, power and political contestation. Through an exploration of Carnival in late nineteenth-century Port-of-Spain (Trinidad), Salvador (Brazil) and Rio (Brazil) we will consider how the formerly enslaved entered and shaped Carnival, through satirical masquerade, dance and music, even from their subaltern position. We will then move to New Orleans Mardi Gras to consider a very different case study, in which Carnival became a site of 'violent ridicule' from which to articulate and perform white supremacy in the city (Roach, 1996). We will examine attempts to 'clean-up Carnival' under bourgeois stewardship in Trinidad on the cusp of independence from the British Empire. We will examine the Caribbean influence on 1930s Harlem, and later Brooklyn with the transplantation of Caribbean Carnival to New York City. Finally, we will examine the formation of Caribbean Carnival in post-war (post-)imperial London, first at St Pancras and later at Notting Hill.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 80%, Practical Exam 20%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a History or HCA exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in two 3rd year History courses each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. This includes courses in Economic History and Scottish History. Enrolment in a third course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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