I show how Frederick Douglass negotiates his way from slavery to freedom, how an ex-con named Malcolm X, son of a Baptist preacher becomes America’s most powerful Islamic cleric. And through this process, including other historical characters, I teach how marginal outsiders become influential insiders.

The programs are presented as a stand alone chautauqua historical characterization and/or as a chautauqua residency. A residency consists of an historical characterization plus one or more classroom presentations.

For Winter/Spring 2006, I am touring two chautauqua shows: Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X along with a series of seminar and workshop presentations.

Frederick Douglass: My Bondage and My Freedom

Frederick Douglass escapes Southern slavery, forges an alliance with Northern abolitionists, writes a narrative of his life & times, and after a two year anti-slavery tour of the British Isles returns to the United States. But when his abolitionist colleagues attempt to curtail his growing political independence, Douglass is forced to confront racial prejudice in an entirely unexpected locale - among his abolitionist friends themselves. Through force of conviction, eloquence of language and the liberating power of thought, this anti-slavery leader and growing “woman’s rights man”, emerges triumphant, not only in his quest for personal and professional dignity, but in his general assault against the slavery system itself.

Malcolm X

After rising from an early life of drug abuse and petty criminal behavior, this respected yet controversial political figure confronts a personal moral crisis – his own human bigotry. Then his driving quest for knowledge, uncompromising self-critique and conversion experience with Islam, catapults this ex-convict, and now major Islamic cleric, into an internationally revered, through still domestically controversial, spokesman for the cause of universal human rights.

Lectures and seminars are presented either the day prior or the day after the public performance, but the day of the performance should remain free of all other commitments except for technical and practical work in the designated performance site.

Academic co-curricular connections:

My various programs make a creative comment on the national and international conversation in several academic fields including Public History, Public Diplomacy, Anthropology, Speech and Drama, Film Studies, American Studies, African-American Studies, Religious Studies and International Relations. Particular connections will be pointed out after each session description.

Seminar #1

The Pace Performance Paradigm for Public Diplomacy and it’s implication for a post 9-11 world.

Thesis:

When creatively done, cultural performance can not only bind diverse peoples together, but it can do so, even in those environments where it is the official policy of the nation-state to pull them apart.

This seminar grows out of my public diplomacy/cultural diplomacy work in Africa. One of the major political consequences of the attacks of September 11, 2001 is the renewed interests by scholars, journalists, and policy makers in the conduct of public diplomacy. Public Diplomacy is often described as official efforts by a nation to "win the hearts and minds" of foreign publics. This seminar draws from the data on my public diplomacy work in South Africa (1980, ’81), doing the last full decade of apartheid.

The seminar answers the question, "how can we exploit the bridge-building power of cultural performance for purposes of cross-cultural communication, civic engagement and democracy building in a nation’s domestic and foreign relations. Grounded in the vast body of anthropological literature that argues that ritual and performance behavior is humanity’s way of bridging cultural divides, I illustrate how an anthropological analysis of my performance based South African data, has produced a model for the successful conduct of cultural diplomacy.

I, also, illustrate how my four phase public diplomacy strategy of - programming, research, education and training - yields a curriculum for training the next generation of pubic diplomacy professionals.

The four major objectives of this seminar, whose goal is to demonstrate the political utility of anthropology theory and practice in cultural diplomacy, are:

A. To offer a new conceptual foundation for understanding how a successful performance-based cultural diplomacy residency works in the field.

This means that those who conduct cultural diplomacy can proceed with a field-tested process that allows them to design, implement, and evaluate cultural diplomacy projects in the field.

B. To bring a key, and until this research, "silent voice", as well as, an under explored perspective to the current discussion of public diplomacy. This is the voice and perspective of "the cultural performer", as "American cultural specialist/American Participant". American Participants or "AmParts" are those who actually implement – in partnership with U. S. Foreign Service Officers who administrate - U. S. cultural diplomacy programs abroad.

This means we get an inside view of the strategies and tactics that the "AmPart" uses to "connect", in the "resonant" exchange as it happens, in the "final three feet", with members of foreign publics.

C. To bring this research into the present, by showing how my testing of this model in a post 9-11 context, among members of diverse ethnic groups within the U.S., including my tests among members of the U. S. Arab-American community, confirms its utility. This new effort, I call "domestic cultural diplomacy".

D. Finally, my South African work not only adds theory, but it also extends the historical record (since apartheid is a thing of the past). Here I demonstrate and comment on the the role of Americans, especially African-Americans, in the anti-apartheid, pro-democracy, movement in South Africa.

What is new about this case is my extending the record to include the anti-apartheid work of African Americans, such as myself, who operated from within the border of South African itself.

Finally, this work highlights, not only the voice of one African American scholar-activist, but in drawing on the experience of the African American people, it brings a black perspective, and illustrates this perspective's value in solving the most pressing question of our era. How to bridge the divide between self and other in a post 9-11 world.

As the great W. E. B. Du Bois instructed us, as a creative problem solving device, I assert that there is much value in using social science to win hearts and minds.

Seminar: 1 and 1/2 to 3 hours.

Scholarly links: Anthropology, political science/International Relations, performance studies, Theatre, African American Studies, American Studies and African studies.

Training

Diversity Training Session:

As a workshop, rather than as a seminar, this session can be used to train those student leaders, along with program staff, who have a special responsibility for diversity programming.

The workshop keys in on a major problem faced by cross-cultural programmers. Though the diversity programs do open up whole new worlds of meaning, through their content, and sometimes through their form, as well; yet, these same programs, all to often, fail in their mission to attrack a diverse audience of active participants.

This workshop instructs its participants in the utility of my cross-cultural, field tested, model whose application will "pull in" a diverse and participatory audience.

Workshop: 2-3 hours

Classroom presentation: Interpreting York, Chautauqua Performance and the Anthropology of Performance Developing a chautauqua character from very few primary sources

Most of my chautauqua historical characters: Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Langston Hughes, are supported by an extensive body of primary source material. Yet, I am often asked, how would one develop a chautauqua presentation around an historical character with little documentary support? This was the problem I faced as I began my research on “York”, the body-servant of Captain William Clark, and the enslaved African-American who traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean (1804-1806). The goal of this class is to illustrate how one can use theory, in my case anthropological theory to re/construct a character with limited historical sources.

In this case, I apply “rite-of-passage” theory in order to interpret my central dramatic question. It is a question historically known about York, yet one still lacking enough data to fully understand the limited facts at hand. This question is: How does one explain the “break-up” in the relationship between York and Clark within a few years of the Expedition’s return to St. Louis? I argue that one hypothesis that might explain this fact is York’s developing sense of self-independence. This self-independence grows from the “identity change” he experienced from his close association with the Indians along the Upper Missouri River. York discovered that the Arikara, Hidasa, Mandan, as well as, the Shoshoni and the Nez Perce peoples held a much more elevated conception of “blackness” than did Euro-Americans. In the session I further develop this idea.

The major point of discussion revolves around the question: to what extent is identity individually constructed and, to what extent is identity socially constructed? As we explore this question, we move from a discussion about an enslaved man, who made an outward journey to the Western sea, into a discussion about the man’s more meaningful inward journey towards self-discovery. We then turn and investigate what meaning such a journey might have for us today. Thus, as well as, illustrating the interpretative power of anthropology theory, I draw upon historical data to explore with students what it means to have a “useable past” in a modern/postmodern context.

One Hour

Public history, performance studies, American studies, African-American studies and anthropology.

Seminar #2: Visual Anthropology: Research with a Camera

This seminar is centered on the showing and discussion of my own ethnographic film, "Our Lady of Light". Visual anthropology film theorists Karl Heider and Jay Ruby argue that anthropological film, whether made for teaching, research or archival purposes, must be a comment on anthropological theory. This teaching film is a comment on Max Weber's thesis about "the disenchantment of the world", that resulted, according to Weber, with the emergence of a modern scientific consciousness.

Background:

Over a four year period, Centre College professor Phyllis Passariello and I conducted ethnographic fieldwork during the annual gathering of "Marian" priests and laypersons, at a Marian site in the United States Ohio Valley region. Each year thousands of people assembled in fellowship in anticipation of the midnight appearance of the "miracle of lights". The faithful interpret the lights as a sign of the spiritual presence of Mary, mother of Jesus. The gathering would begin on the morning of August 30th and the light phenomenon always started at 12 mid-night, August 31st.

The film chronicles the activities of the pilgrims as they arrived by car, as well as, by the busloads. I conducted on-sight video interviews, eliciting (in a term coined by Dr. Passariello) "faith narratives". To the cultural researcher these testimonials by laypersons, as well as, by the officiating primary priest, are extraordinary for what they reveal about the power of faith in modern life. The film concludes with the actual manifestation of "the lights" themselves. I present two different types of visual representations that document this amazing site. First, I show them as "real time" images. Then, I present a "freeze frame" showing of selected light phenomena. Finally, the film closes on a shot that implicitly reveals my own interpretation of the meaning of the day's activities.

Conduct of the Seminar

At the beginning of the seminar, I set-up the film by providing an anthropological perspective on ritual and ritual theory, including church and lay theory on the miracle phenomenon in question. I make special note of Marian apparition sightings as a worldwide event, dating back at least to the 4th century, A. D. My editing of the film reveals the field site from the perspective of both the ethnographer's or observer's perspective, as well as, from the perspective of the various participants on site. Even though my theoretical explanation of "what's going on here", is implicitly embedded within the film structure itself, doing the first part of the seminar, I refrain from offering my explicit interpretation and elicit the interpretation and conclusion of the viewers.

"What's going on here?"

After the first showing, we discuss what we have seen. Still, I withhold my interpretation. With my own visual anthropology students [following the ideas of Heider], we view the film a second time. This second viewing is guided by the theories that emerge from the on-going dialogue. Next we hold a critical discussion fueled by the student's own theories. Finally, I provide my explanation along with a discussion of the reasons why I take the particular stance that I do. In a workshop situation, we may or may not (depending upon time constraints), engage in this second viewing.

"Our Lady of Light" has been professionally screened at the National Conference of The Semiotic Society of America in Toronto, Canada, as well as, at a meeting of The Society of Religious Studies in Chicago. It has also been used in anthropology classes at: The University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, Centre College in Danville, Kentucky and, on two separate occasions, at The University of Michigan-Dearborn. At each showing it never fails to evoke a spirited discussion about research with a camera, collaborative research, semiotics, as well as, reflections on the nature of "reality" itself.

One recurring comment revolves around the question that I never fail to ask myself each time that I view the film (even though I shot it) and that is:

"Am I really seeing what I think I am seeing here?" And, "…if I am, it is certainly counter-intuitive to a modern/scientific consciousness."

But, as I always point out to students, the sum total of anthropological data indicate that what is non-common to us, is oftentimes quite common to the majority of humankind.

Areas of study for this seminar are anthropology, religious studies and film studies. It is also relevant for those who conduct qualitative research and employ a symbolic or semiotic frame to interpret their data.

Film Running Time: 57 minutes

Session Time:

I have conducted this seminar in 90-minute classes, but ideally, I prefer between two and one half to 3 hours. This is especially true for a general audience who will lack knowledge of anthropology, film theory, as well as, the background in Marian studies that is necessary for a full appreciation of "what's going on here."

Finally, the additional issue that the film addresses is the solution to an age-old problem that has bedeviled visual anthropologists since the beginning of the sub-discipline. This concerns the high cost of production and post-production film equipment. In times past, there was a strained relationship between the academic anthropologist and the professional (commercial) filmmaker. Because of the anthropologist's lack of "control over the means of production", the filmmaker's point-of-view was dominant in the finished product. Presently, however, equipment is affordable enough that this is no longer the case. Ruby argues that this changed reality should result in an increase in the social scientific merit of current anthropology films. These films should be ones where anthropological/scholarly values are dominant over purely commercial interests. This film and seminar intersect this conversation.

Equipment: 1/2" VCR, television monitor and remote control. Blackboard, podium, chalk and eraser.