RELG 007B. The Caribbean Carnival: Sacred Myth and Performance

From saint feast day processions and pilgrimages for Black Christ statues to Carnaval, Crop Over, and other Caribbean harvest festivals, religious holidays in Latin America are occasions for celebration. This course focuses on religious festivals and ritual bodies to reveal the ways these performances form mobile archives of history that yet testify both to the accumulated forces of colonialism, slavery, and capitalism that shaped this region, as well as the power of choreography and other embodied movement as instruments and devices of popular insurgency. Course materials include primary and secondary readings, multimedia sources such as ethnographic videos and audio recordings, material and sartorial culture objects, and in-class lectures and discussions. Potential field trip to Philadelphia's El Carnaval de Puebla.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for BLST, ESCH, LALS
Catalog chapter: Religion
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/religion

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