Circus remains: circus and the late British empire, 1900-1980

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My interdisciplinary project traces the imperial legacy of the circus from the late Victorian period through the twentieth century. It brings together circus studies and the history of the nation in 'post'-imperial Britain to explore how the remains of colonialism register beyond the textual, in ways that are embodied and unwritten. Using previously unreleased material from BBC and Pathé archives, I show how British identity was negotiated in circus productions, suggesting that circuses became embodied archives of imperialism. I concurrently question how televised circus's broadcasting institutions and cultural stakeholders shaped -- and continue to sculpt -- attitudes towards, and histories of, empire. Building on Rebecca Schneider's concept of performance 'remains' (Schneider), I illuminate the relationship between circus's transformation and its 'remains' in a 'post'-colonial context: a relationship of tension yet coexistence which puts pressure on the very idea of the 'post'-colonial circus. Despite the (inter)national upheaval of the twentieth century, actual circus acts remained substantially the same, by virtue of tradition: inherited from body to body through generations of circus families. I therefore suggest that circus acts are 'mnemonic reserves' (Roach) for the legacy of empire. The circus itself becomes an archive of imperialism. In line with Ann Laura Stoler's exploration of the 'watermarks' of colonial history, 'indelibly inscribed in past and present' (Stoler), my project also comprises a meta-discussion of the institutional archives of the BBC and British Pathé. Moving beyond the textual and using performance as methodology, I interrogate how institutions hold responsibility in forming and sustaining hegemonic values in 'post'-imperial Britain - in the material they disseminate, and in taxonomising their collections to define what constitutes a 'worthy' object of research.