Return to search

Of Holes and Historitivity Excavating the Ruins of History and Mining with Memory: A Performance Paradigm

The methods by which we collectively create, experience and remember history are complicated and fraught with holes and inconsistencies. All to often, the institutions that govern historical events are invested in eliminating those holes or reconciling those inconsistencies, or both. Our universities, as they purport to house knowledge and extend our experience of that knowledge, are highly implicated in this particular process of dealing with the historical hole. In response to that constructed reality, many scholars and theorists, both from within the walls of the academy and from their fields outside the academy, find themselves obligated, from a political and ethical position, to attack or subvert or weaken or punch their own holes in the prevailing academic body. A cycle of hole filling and hole drilling is created. As if we have been cursed by our own Atreusian knowledge, we, as academics, as historians and as theorists seem fated to perform in a cycle that perpetuates itself in an ever-continuing, self-reflexive way. Of Holes and Historitivity addresses this situation by advocating that historical experiences are perhaps best memorialized in performance. In reshaping the way we memorialize or remember our historical artifacts and events, Of Holes and Historitivity hopes to eventually reshape our understanding of knowledge and the pedagogy that purports to bring us to that knowledge. If this can happen, if the nature of the academy can change, then perhaps our understanding of our own natures and identities will follow. Perhaps we will come to recognize the holes and inconsistencies in our perceived realities as the most glorious parts of those realities. In the immediacy of a remembering theatre, Of Holes and Historitivity wants to change what and how we know.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-12212003-201744
Date12 January 2004
CreatorsChelakis, Gino S.
ContributorsRobin Roberts, Les Wade, Leigh Clemons, Tiwanna M. Simpson, Jennifer Jones
PublisherLSU
Source SetsLouisiana State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-12212003-201744/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

Page generated in 0.0048 seconds