Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895

Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 - Hardcover

$122.40
$122.40
Skip to product information
Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895
  • Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895
Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 - Hardcover

Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 - Hardcover

by Jill Lane
$122.40
$122.40

Book Overview

by Jill Lane (Author)

Blackface Cuba, 1840-1895 offers a critical history of the relation between racial impersonation, national sentiment, and the emergence of an anticolonial public sphere in nineteenth-century Cuba. Through a study of Cuba's vernacular theatre, the teatro bufo, and of related forms of music, dance, and literature, Lane argues that blackface performance was a primary site for the development of mestizaje, Cuba's racialized national ideology, in which African and Cuban become simultaneously mutually exclusive and mutually formative.

Popular with white Cuban-born audiences during the period of Cuba's anticolonial wars, the teatro bufo was celebrated for combining Spanish elements with supposedly African rhythms and choreography. Its wealth of short comic plays developed a well-loved repertory of blackface stock characters, from the negrito to the mulata, played by white actors in blackface. Lane contends that these practices were embraced by white audiences as especially national forms that helped define Cuba's opposition to Spain, at the same time that they secured prevailing racial hierarchies for a future Cuban nation. Comparing the teatro bufo to related forms of racial representation, particularly those created by black Cubans in theatres and in the press, Lane analyzes performance as a form of social contestation through which an emergent Cuban national community struggled over conflicting visions of race and nation.

Author Biography

Jill Lane teaches theatre studies and American studies at Yale University.

Number of Pages: 288
Dimensions: 1.1 x 9.2 x 6.3 IN
Publication Date: June 22, 2005
ISBN9780812238679
Author Jill Lane
PublisherUniversity of Pennsylvania Press
GenreHistory
FormatHardcover
PublishedJune 2005
LanguageENG- English
Pages288
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

History Nonfiction

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

You may also like