The Ethnohistory of Events and Nonevents

Abstract

My original title was perverse. However, I have never regarded myself as one to flee in the face of perversity. I chronically suffer from a pathological form of premature entitlement. When asked or required to present a paper, I usually invent a clever title and then expend much worrisome effort trying to justify it. My original title, The Ethnohistory of Nonevents, was too clever by half-thus the revised title. Andre Gide remarked in one of his remarkable aphorisms from his I899 La Promethee mal enchaine (translated as Prometheus Misbound, 1953) that a man writes a book not so much because he has an idea to express but to excuse himself for having had it. So with this paper. I also feel compelled to confess that my original choice of title was a defensive maneuver. I figured that if I failed to generate a suitable text to back up my title, I might emulate composer John Cage, whose most famous work was entitled Silence, first performed in I96I. By following Cage's lead, I could transform this occasion into a true nonevent. But herein lies the burden of this paper: What is an event? and conversely, What is a nonevent?