Re-inventing Tradition: Rhenish Carnival and Cultures of Emotion over the Longue Durée
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: History
Abstract
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.
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.
| Title | Museum Exhibition in Framework of the Fellowship |
| Description | In conjunction with Dr. Kathrin Hesse at the German Carnival Museum, I co-curated an special exhibition at the museum based on my research project. This is a major milestone outlined in my research proposal. The special exhibition runs into 2025 and is entitled "Himmlische Freude - Höllische Lust: Karnevalistische Emotionen im Wandel der Zeit" - translated - Heavenly Joy - Hellish Pleasures: Carnivalistic Emotions and their historical transformation. The special exhibition is based exclusively on my research project and traces the re-interpretation of Carnival forms and rituals across time. While many lay people tend to view tradition as immovable, the exhibition conveys how multiple generations re-interpreted continuous forms, giving Carnival a new meaning. In particular the exhibition highlights how re-interpretation of forms were intertwined with shifts from late medieval notions of Carnival as about sin to modern notions of the tradition as about harnessing the healing powers of Carnival joy and pleasure. The special exhibition required intensive work and securing loans from a number of institutions, including the Cologne City Museum, the Cologne Carnival Museum, the Otto Schäfer Museum, and a number of private collections. I also explored and uncovered useful pieces in the archive and repositories of the German Carnival museum. The exhibition was a rich learning experience in the realm of public history. I initiated the idea for the exhibition, drafted my initial proposal of its content and relevant loans, and wrote all initial texts for the exhibition. Dr. Hesse provided a valuable source of advice and editing of my proposal, including helpful suggestions for tailoring my proposals to a lay audience. The partnership worked exceptionally well. The exhibition began by looking at the figure of the jester--a key figure of Central European Carnivals and his deep association with sin throughout the late Middle Ages and early modern period. Key exhibition pieces here included etchings from original sixteenth books of Narrenliteratur, including editions from Sebastian Brant and Thomas Murner. While the museum had some copies, many loans here came from the Otto Schäfer collection. This section also included illustrations of violent games in Carnival--with the early tradition (in contrast to the modern one) showing broad acceptance of Schadenfreude. The exhibition continued exploring the association of early Carnival symbols with sin - including that of the ship of fools - associated with the anti-Christ - which was destined to destruction. Here etchings from Brants late 15th century work "The Ship of Fools" were key pieces - depicting the ship of fools ruled over by the monstrous anti-Christ. This was followed by a section illustrating how the metaphor of Carnival as a state (ruled over by a King or monarch--who was not infrequently represented by the devil)--was intertwined with this diabolic interpretation of the tradition. This is particularly well displayed in the motif of the Carnival battle in which the sinful forces of Carnival are inevitably defeated in medieval and early modern depictions, with the victory of the forces of Lent. This section of the exhibition was followed by a section on early modern Carnival which demonstrated the fading of earlier diabolic interpretations. A key focal point here was the figure of the Harlekin who was originally associated with diabolism, but which had increasingly shed his diabolic tones by the 18th century. A centre piece of this section included an original 18th century painting of the Harlekin by an unknown southern German master. Other original 18th century woodcuts of the jester figure were also presented which reflected how the figure had begun to shed his earlier monstrous qualities. These sections concluded at the end of a long exhibition hall, with a pivot in direction at the end towards the other side of a long dividing wall, with a thematic switch to the modern history of Carnival as about healing and joy. The section began with pieces from the 1825 Cologne Carnival events held under the theme "The Victory of Joy" - here we included many original early nineteenth century illustrations of the events - several of them on loan from the Cologne Carnival Museum. The victory of joy was a clear inversion of the Carnival state and battle motifs. No longer was the devil a figure leading Carnival, rather he was the enemy, associated with negative emotions, the battle - literally performed on the streets of Cologne--ended not with the victory of Lent, but rather with the victory of Carnival. The following sections focussed on themes of Carnival joy as about healing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This section included photography of Carnival in the ruins of the Second World War, original post-cards from the turn of the century thematizing the emotional healing of Carnival, and photographs of a 1903 Carnival celebration in an insane asylum, with text reporting on how the event sought to harness the emotional healing force of the tradition. Original song books from the early 1900s, with illustrations, were used to illustrate the transformation of the jester figure into a gallant positive figure and hero of the people. A section on the ship of fools included a sculpture of the figure on loan from the Cologne Carnival Museum and 19th century depictions of the ship as a battle ship fighting the forces of bad humour. The ship no longer sank, but rather engaged in the good war against Carnivals diabolic enemies. The final section closed with the revival of devilish medieval forms in Carnival, particularly in the German Southwest. This section included original masks and full figure costumes on loan from private collections. This section asked the viewer to consider whether a return of diabolic forms meant a return of diabolic meanings and medieval interpretations of Carnival. By explaining the history of the revival through the presentation of individual pieces, however, the exhibition demonstrated how the interpretation of the devil figure had changed . In some cases he appeared as the enemy of Carnival - while in other contexts was presented as harmless and playful figure. We composed a 40 page booklet providing interested visitors with in depth information about the relevant pieces. The exhibition was opened with a large reception in which I delivered a talk about its content and my broader research project. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The exhibition has been covered in outlets in the German press. See, for example: https://www.mainpost.de/regional/kitzingen/himmlische-freude-hoellische-lust-fuehrung-durch-das-fastnachtmuseum-art-11690389 We have included a feedback mechanism in the form of a questionaire for visitors of the exhibition. As the special exhibition has not yet concluded and I am now back in the UK, I have not been able to evaluate the questionnaire forms. The pathway to impact is to show lay people and Carnival celebrants how change and transformation is not a threat to the tradition but rather has been key to its resilience.It challenges lay people to think about tradition in more flexible ways. While I built new research networks through planning the exhibition (naturally with partners at the German Carnival Museum, but also at the Cologne City Museum and the Cologne Carnival Museum), I have also had other contacts result from the exhibition. I have already had a request for collaboration of a scholar at the University of Würzburg who visited the exhibition - and invitation for a presentation at the University of Cologne. |
| URL | https://deutsches-fastnachtmuseum.byseum.de/de/presse/pressematerial-fuer-medienvertreter/17.9.2024-... |
| Description | Open Access Publication Funding (10,000 GBP) |
| Amount | £10,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Conference Organized in Framework of Fellowship. "Rethinking Carnival from the Pre-modern to the Present" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The conference, organized by myself and a project partner in the framework of the fellowship, brought together scholars working on the history of Carnival from twelve different countries and working on Carnivals in different time preiods and contexts. The aim of the conference was to bridge across deep divisions in studies of the tradition across national lines and time periods. It also brought together scholars from different disciplines, including history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and cultural anthropology. The conference lasted for four days and built lasting research networks between scholars working on the tradition. We are currently planning an edited volume based on select contributions from the conference. We have published a conference report on the conference with H-Soz-Kult, which reaches a very large readership (for a link to the report, see the attached URL below). Several new insights were generated through the conference and forged the basis for new directions in research. As the findings of the conference indicated, the tradition can help shed light on processes of reinvention of tradition in which forms of tradition took on very new meaning in different periods. A major theme to emerge from the conference was the shifting role of religion in shaping ideas of Carnival's meaning, which only becomes apparent by breaking through temporal boundaries and taking in a longue durée view. A panoply of medieval symbols and rituals reflected understandings of Carnival as associated with the sinful and fallen state of mankind. This framing could be seen in the use of the devil as the representative of Carnival, portrayals of the jester as the embodiment of sin and as a torturer of Christ, or evocation of the ship of fools as a representation of the anti-Christ, with redemption found by leaving the sinking ship of fools and entering the ship of the church. In places including Central Europe, the carnival number "11" represented a symbol of overstepping the ten commandments. Theatrical and literary late medieval and early-modern depictions of Carnival battles, however, one interprets their outcome, inevitably cast the forces of Carnival gluttony and sin against the piety of the fasting of Lent. These perceptions were re-enforced with the prominence of the monstrous as representative figures of Carnival in the late Middle Ages. By bridging across late medieval, early modern and modern studies, however, we noted a clear decline in such religious metaphors and older systems of meaning, beginning in the latter early modern period and having largely been completed by the nineteenth century. Many ritual forms and symbols continued but demonstrated a remarkable ability to take on new meanings. The Carnival jester shed many of its sinister and sinful connections, the theme of the Carnival battle increasingly juxtaposed Carnival less against Lent and more against forced of modern industrial life or negative emotions. This went hand in hand with re-interpretations of Carnival joy and pleasures as serving new purposes, with many increasingly describing such pleasures less as sinful (when held within the proper bounds) and more as a healing, community-forming, and positive emotion. Ideas of how Carnival joy should be pursued, however, also changed with growing rejection of Schadenfreude and emphasis on joining Carnival pleasures with empathy towards others. Another major theme to emerge throughout the conference was how Carnivals in modernity became celebrations of a sense of place. In thinking through this question, we expanded beyond earlier thinkinga bout modernity an Carnival as only about trajectories of social discipline. While Carnivals in late medieval and early modern communities had included prolific performances of social relationships within communities, modern Carnivals in a range of nations, regions and localities were shaped into a celebration of place-based heritage, with Carnival traditions becoming contested symbols which defined imagined communities. Celebrating Carnival came to sit at the heart of what it meant to be Brazilian, Trinidadian, a Rhinelander, a New Orleanian, or a denizen of Nice, among others. As the cases we explored in the conference demonstrated, however, the territorial scale of such appropriations were different. In places where Carnival was celebrated on a national scale, Carnival particularly came to be framed as a symbol of national identity and heritage. Places like Brazil and Trinidad offer prime examples. In places where celebrations were geographically uneven, Carnival instead became a symbol of local or regional identities. The confessionally-fragmented landscapes of Germany and Switzerland, where Carnival was limited to particular regions, represented a prime example of cases where the tradition was perceived as a site of local or regional heritage. The same could be said for more confessionally uniform countries where Carnival celebrations were fragmentary, including in France, Belgium or Spain. Within this context, debates about how Carnival was celebrated and organized and whom they included became debates about the contours of local, regional and national identities themselves. Contestations over community and heritage in Carnival encompassed diverse registers, from race and religion to gender and sexuality. Inventing new aspects of tradition could be used to attempt to exclude certain groups and foster a particular idea about ideas of community being celebrated. Alternatively, Carnival could also be used to challenge such ideas, with examples of more inclusively minded groups in different places using them to advocate for more cosmopolitan ideas about community. Drawing on these insights about modern Carnivals as a celebration of place, a major theme of the conference was the movement and mobility of Carnival forms across space. Celebraiton of Carnival as about a sense of place-based heritage has often led such movements to be underresearched. As discussed throughout the conference, far from being "native" products of place, its celebration and respective forms circulated widely, with many Carnival traditions representing an eclectic mixture of different influences. Italian influences crossed the Alps to their northern neighbours, French, Spanish, and Portuguese Carnivals crossed the Atlantic, where they often mixed with other forms of festival culture, including from Africa, while new Carnival forms from the Americas in several instances would cross the Atlantic and influence Carnivals of their former colonizers. Sometimes these influences were circulated via media and other times through movements of people. By looking comparatively at each others work, howeve,r we found that carnivalists in different times and palces dealt with the histories of these movements different. In some cases, celebration of national identities in Carnival meant seeking to forget the memory of such connections and cast Carnival as a native creation. In other cases, influences from the outside were so prolific that ignoring them seemed all but impossible. Association of Carnival with Brazilian culture in modern Portugal represents a particularly interesting case. In other cases the international connections of the Carnival tradition could be used to argue for the tradition as reflecting the cosmopolitanism of a sense of place. In yet other cases, drawing on the perceived Carnival forms of one place or other could be viewed as part of a "civilizing project." The efforts of nineteenth-century elites in Brazil to promote "European" forms of Carnival represents a case in point. For modern denizens dislocated from their native city, region or country, celebration of Carnival from afar in the manner of their place of home often became an opportunity to assert a claim to continued membership in communities from afar. In several cases, this gave birth to new Carnivals. The export of Caribbean Carnivals to North American and the United Kingdom represent cases in point. In other instances, including in Greek Carnivals in modern Turkey, for example, such efforts disturbed nationalists who sought to expunge them as foreign bodies. While many of these issues explored in the conference brought up very new lines of questioning, a significant result of our conference was how positions on the old question of Carnival's relationship to politics reveal a very clear trend. Older competing schools of thought maintained that Carnival either inherently challenged political authority, while another maintained that Carnival served as a safety-valve which re-enforced social orders. Nearly all participants rejected both schools, arguing instead that Carnival could reflect, reassert or challenge social orders in different ways and at different times. The difficulty of monopolizing Carnival forms often meant that it became a forum for expression of diverging viewpoints which could cross the political spectrum. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-141974 |
| Description | Presentation of Research, University of Cologne (October 2024) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I was contacted by Prof. Dr. Peter Marx working in theatre studies at the University of Cologne, who had heard about my work based on my work on the museum exhibition. Dr. Marx is preparing major global collaborations on the theme of Carnival in theatre and has a colloquium on Carnival in which he asked me to present. The presentation and subsequent questions lasted for an hour. The title of my presentation was "Re-inventing Tradition: Cologne Carnival and the Transformation of Ritual Forms and their Intepretations across the Longue Durée". The presentation helped in forging vital connections, including a subsequent invitation to present at a major global conference on Carnival in theatre which will be this summer - as well as invitation to present my research in a podcast. While I have completed the podcast, its broadcast is pending and will be submitted on the next report |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation: Opening of Special Carnival Exhibition curated on Fellowship |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | At the opening of the special exhibition which I curated at the German Carnival museum, we held an opening reception attended by around 60 people, with attendance from a diverse group which included museum curators, representatives of Carnival societies, heritage practitioners, and the general public. I delivered a 30 minute presentation of my UKRI research project which forms the basis of the exhibition. I was able to make key contacts through the exhibition and answer questions to the public. The event took place in October 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Research Presentation (PI) / Jeremy DeWaal, "A History of Emotions Approach to the Study of Carnival: Examples from the Reinvention of the Rhenish Tradition" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation in International Conference on Rethinking Carnival, which I also co-organized in the framework of the grant. Presented to international scholars working on Carnival from different disciplinary perspectives. Abstract below: Looking at the longue durée history of Carnival in the Rhineland, this paper outlines two new potential approaches for studying the Carnival tradition. The first focuses on attention to "re-invention of tradition." While invention of tradition refers to the creation of new traditions in the recent past, focus on re-invention involves attention to how longer-standing forms of ritual tradition take on often radically new meanings over the course of multiple generations. The evolutions of these meanings, I argue, can be used to shed light on broader cultural, intellectual, or social shifts. The evolution of Carnival's perceived meanings can particularly be used to shed light on shifts in cultures of emotion. Carnival historically loosened the rules of prevailing emotional regimes, while simultaneously representing a forum of contested engagement with them. Thinking about Carnival through an emotional-historical lense evokes many questions: How did celebrants perceive joy in Carnival and how was it to be pursued? Should Carnival permit Schadenfreude? Were feelings of Carnival joy supposed to be followed by feelings of regret or liberation? Was experience of Carnival joy perceived as a reflection of mankind's wickedness or as more unambiguously positive and healing? Carnivalists in different periods, I would argue, offered very different answers to these questions. Comparing late medieval Carnival with modern Carnival in the Rhineland, we see radically different answers to these questions. These differing answers are also reflected in different interpretations of Carnival symbols and rituals. Throughout the Late Middle Ages, Carnival was broadly understood as a representation of a kingdom of Hell defined by worldly pleasure-seeking, Schadenfreude, and violent displays. By the nineteenth century, Rhenish Carnival was depicted as am embodiment of positive and healing forces to be embraced. Acceptance of Schadenfreude was replaced by the slogan "to everyone well and to no one pain." Carnival had also transformed into a celebration of local identity. The perceived meaning of the panoply of Carnival symbols and rituals underwent similar reinventions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Webinar Series Organized in Framework of Fellowship. "Fat Worlds and Carnivals Webinar" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The webinar series has been organized within the framework of the fellowship and it occurs on average monthly or bi-monthly. It has brought together scholars all over the world in an online format to facilitate presentation of emerging research on Carnival. As an extension of our international conference on Carnival, these webinars are used to help break through persistent barriers in study of the Carnival tradition across place. Study of Carnival has heretofore been very much defined by national divisions in research. The webinars also serve to forge collaborative relationships and establish a community of researchers working on the subject. For a list of presentations for the 2023-2024 year, see the attached URL. We are planning on doing another round of webinars starting again in 2025. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
| URL | https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-137442?language=en |