Re-inventing Tradition: Rhenish Carnival and Cultures of Emotion over the Longue Durée

While much scholarship has examined processes of invention of tradition in the recent past, less work has been done on what this study refers to as the "re-invention of tradition"- processes by which continuous forms of ritual tradition take on new meanings over the course of multiple generations. The project takes up this topic through a study of the longue durée history of the Carnival tradition. Looking at the case of the Rhineland and examining Carnival through the lens of the history of emotions, the project excavates the radical re-invention of the tradition's perceived meaning from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century and explores the routes through which its meaning changed. While promoting a new line of inquiry into the re-invention of tradition, the project will also use a history of Carnival to examine changing attitudes towards communal celebration as an emotional practice. In doing so, it will help fill a persistent gap in the history of emotions around studies of "positive" emotions.

While studies of Carnival have typically looked at shorter periods of its history to shed light on politics and social orders, a longue durée purview reveals the profound re-invention of its meaning over generations. Throughout the Late Middle Ages, Carnival was broadly understood as a representation of the Kingdom of Hell defined by worldly pleasure-seeking, Schadenfreude, and violent displays. The Carnival jester appeared as the torturer of Christ, with the medieval tradition representing the fallen state of man to be overcome on Ash Wednesday when Carnival ends and the fasting of Lent begins. Much evidence, however, suggests that Carnival had taken on very new meanings by the nineteenth century. While the Carnival jester had been transformed into the "happy victor," celebrants described Carnival joy not as representing the fallen state of man, but rather as a positive, social, healing, and community-forming emotion which compensated individuals for the burdens of industrial production. Modern Carnival simultaneously represented a site of debate over exuberant joy, the proper means of its pursuit, and the relationship of the emotion to social class, politics, morality, and public order.

The project will address a series of questions: What made Carnival so re-inventable and how did this contribute to its survival? Did these changes occur through intergenerational slippage and forgetting or intentional efforts to revise its meaning? When, exactly, did these changes occur and what do they tell us about evolving ideas about communal celebration as an emotional practice? When did Carnival celebrants begin to describe the emotions of Carnival as healing and when did they reject Schadenfreude as an appropriate Carnival emotion? The emotional history of the tradition, finally, evokes questions about theories of modernity as defined by growing demands for emotional control. Does an emotional history of Carnival support or problematize this theory?

The project findings will particularly be useful for public bodies involved in recent efforts to "safeguard" forms of intangible cultural heritage. While Carnival traditions have been included in ICH lists, this project calls for greater attention to how meanings of such forms of heritage have changed. Failure to understand these histories of transformation magnifies the risk of closing off routes of re-invention in the name of preservation.

The project findings will be disseminated through academic and popular channels, including through a special museum exhibition, monograph, and journal articles. In the framework of the project, I will also co-organize an international workshop on the history of Carnival with partners at the University of Frankfurt. The workshop will bridge across divisions in the study of Carnival based on national context and time period and will result in an edited volume which explores the possibilities opened up by breaking through these barriers.