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

我的跨学科项目追溯了从维多利亚时代晚期到二十世纪的马戏团的帝国遗产。它将马戏研究与“后”帝国英国的国家历史结合在一起，探索殖民主义的遗迹如何以具体和不成文的方式超越文本。我利用BBC和path<s:1>档案中以前未公开的材料，展示了英国人的身份是如何在马戏作品中得到协商的，表明马戏成为帝国主义的具体化档案。同时，我也质疑电视马戏团的广播机构和文化利益相关者如何塑造——并继续塑造——对帝国的态度和历史。在丽贝卡·施耐德（Rebecca Schneider）表演“遗存”概念的基础上，我阐明了马戏团的转型与“后”殖民背景下的“遗存”之间的关系：一种紧张而共存的关系，给“后”殖民马戏团的概念带来了压力。尽管20世纪的（国际）国家动荡，实际的马戏表演基本上保持不变，凭借传统：从一个身体到另一个身体，通过一代又一代的马戏团家庭传承。因此，我认为马戏表演是帝国遗产的“记忆储备”（罗奇）。马戏团本身变成了帝国主义的档案。与安·劳拉·斯托勒（Ann Laura Stoler）对殖民历史“水印”的探索一致，“不可磨灭地铭刻在过去和现在”（斯托勒），我的项目还包括对BBC和英国path<s:1>机构档案的元讨论。超越文本并使用性能作为方法论，我询问机构如何在“后”帝国英国形成和维持霸权价值方面承担责任-在他们传播的材料中，以及在对他们的收藏进行分类以定义什么构成了“有价值”的研究对象。

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.