Simming : participatory performance and the making of meaning / Scott Magelssen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Magelssen, Scott, 1974-

Contributor:

Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

Series:

Theater: theory/text/performance series.

Theater: theory/text/performance series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History--Study and teaching--Simulation methods.

History.

Historical reenactments.

Performance art.

Historic sites--Educational aspects.

Historic sites.

Cultural property--Educational aspects.

Cultural property.

History--Study and teaching.

Physical Description:

xii, 249 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2014.

Summary:

At an ecopark in Mexico, tourists pretend to be illegal migrants, braving inhospitable terrain and the U.S. Border Patrol as they attempt to cross the border. At a living history museum in Indiana, daytime visitors return after dark to play fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. In the Mojave Desert, the U.S. Army simulates entire provinces of Iraq and Afghanistan, complete with bustling villages, insurgents, and Arabic-speaking townspeople, to train soldiers for deployment to the Middle East. At a nursing home, trainees put on fogged glasses and earplugs, thick bands around their finger joints, and sandbag harnesses to simulate the effects of aging and to gain empathy for their patients. These immersive environments in which spectator-participants engage in simulations of various kinds-or "simming"-are the subject of Scott Magelssen's book. His book lays out the ways in which simming can provide efficacy and promote social change through affective, embodied testimony. Using methodology from theater history and performance studies (particularly as these fields intersect with cultural studies, communication, history, popular culture, and American studies), Magelssen explores the ways these representational practices produce, reify, or contest cultural and societal perceptions of identity. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Simming the Past

1 "This Is a Drama. You Are Characters": Simming the Fugitive Slave in Conner Prairie's "Follow the North Star" 29

2 Simming the (Virtual) Past 48

3 Playing Dead, or Living History with Corpses 62

Part II Bearing Witness to the Present

4 Learner-Driven Simming 77

5 Playing the Illegal Migrant: Tourist Simming in Mexico 96

Part III Preenactments, or Rehearsing for the Future

6 Preempting Trauma 115

7 Senior Moments 138

8 Rehearsing the Warrior Ethos 155.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

ISBN:

9780472072149

0472072145

9780472052141

0472052144

OCLC:

869346322