TransCanada Institute News
TCI/SETS Faculty Lecture Series: Daniel O’Quinn
In the Face of Difference: Molineaux, Crib, and the Violence of the Fancy
Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 4:30 pm
Reception to follow.
Abstract
In the Face of Difference: Molineaux, Cribb and the Violence of the Fancy
Unlike many of its competitors, the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser saw the public enthusiasm for boxing–or the “Fancy”–and in particular the overwhelming interest in the fights between the coal merchant Thomas Cribb and the “Baltimore black” Thomas Molineaux in 1810 and 1811, as an alarming sign of the “frivolity” of the nation. Complaining that Britons were more versed in the staged bouts between Cribb and Molineaux outside Stratham than in Wellington’s struggles against Marmont on the continent, the editors correctly identified a failure in the public’s comprehension of the scale of the respective conflicts, but themselves failed to understand that the “hammering” doled out in the ring was laden with historical significance beyond the conventional notions of geopolitics. The vast majority of the press was cognizant that something crucial was going on and it is my contention that a thorough examination of the fights as moments of social and cultural performance throws up a number of important historical and methodological questions for the study of Romanticism, race and decolonization. The most important of these concerns the differential relation between singular acts of performance and the nascent historicity of performativity itself. What is so remarkable about this example is that the methodological import of the relationship between iteration and present performance is thoroughly entwined with a series of racial problematics which engage questions of “difference” that conventionally stabilize temporal disjunctions in their analysis of identity. Thus two critical paradigms normally at odds with one another have the potential to fruitfully critique one another in this essay. It is my hope that the exploration of how differential engagements with temporal issues in performance will open new ways to address questions of social and racial distinction and vice versa.
Bio
Daniel O’Quinn is a Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Staging Governance: Theatrical Imperialism in London, 1770-1800 (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) and Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770-1790 (Johns Hopkins, 2011).
The former book explores the representation of Anglo-Indian affairs on the London stage and in the theatre of politics at the close of the eighteenth century. The latter book examines the mediation of the American War in the British press and in a variety of performance venues. He has also co-edited the Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, 1730-1830 (2007) with Jane Moody, and has edited the Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan for Broadview Press (2008). He is currently editing Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Embassy Letters with Teresa Heffernan for Broadview Press and embarking on a new project on intercultural performance and diplomacy in the eighteenth century. His articles on the intersection of race, sexuality and class in a range of cultural milieus have appeared in various journals including ELH, October, Studies in Romanticism, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Theatre Journal, Documents, European Romantic Review, and Romantic Praxis.
Jan 11, 2012 10:30 am