Redface : race, performance, and indigeneity / Bethany Hughes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hughes, Bethany, author.

Series:

Performance and American cultures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Redface--United States.

Race in the theater--United States--History.

Indians in literature.

American drama--History and criticism.

Redface.

Race in the theater.

American drama.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

vii, 271 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"'Redface' is the first book to consider Native American representation in U.S. theatre, how creating a racialized character severely constrains Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty, and what steps could be taken to address the challenges of representing Indigenous people on the stage"-- Provided by publisher.

"'Redface' unearths the history of the theatrical phenomenon of redface in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Like blackface, redface was used to racialize Indigenous peoples and nations, and even more crucially, exclude them from full citizenship in the United States. Arguing that redface is more than just the costumes or makeup an actor wears, Bethany Hughes contends that it is a collaborative, curatorial process through which artists and audiences make certain bodies legible as 'Indian.' By chronicling how performances and definitions of redface rely upon legibility and delineations of race that are culturally constructed and routinely shifting, this book offers an understanding of how redface works to naturalize a very particular version of history and, in doing so, mask its own performativity. Tracing the 'Stage Indian' from its early nineteenth-century roots to its proliferation across theatrical entertainment forms and turn of the twenty-first century attempts to address its racist legacy, 'Redface' uses case studies in law and civic life to understand its offstage impact. Hughes connects extensive scholarship on the 'Indian' in American culture to the theatrical history of racial impersonation and critiques of settler colonialism, demonstrating redface's high stakes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. Revealing the persistence of redface and the challenges of fixing it, 'Redface' closes by offering readers an embodied rehearsal of what it would mean to read not for the 'Indian' but for Indigenous theater and performance as it has always existed in the US." -- Publisher's description.

Contents:

Introduction

Feathers and face paint

Indian princesses and the stakes of legibility

Authentic Indians

Fixing redface

Provocation

Hinushi Inla.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-258) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Hughes, Bethany. Redface

ISBN:

9781479829378

1479829374

9781479829392

1479829390

OCLC:

1427565353