Jones Approach Research Articles

Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain by Nicholas R. Jones

Reviewed by: Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain by Nicholas R. Jones Harrison Meadows (bio) Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain nicholas r. jones Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019 222 pp. Nicholas R. Jones's book, Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain examines the politics of theatrical embodiments of Blackness on the Iberian stage from the late 1400s through the end of the seventeenth century. As is accurately acknowledged in the introduction, little attention has been given to account for the populations of sub-Saharan African descent on the Iberian Peninsula during this period, and much less toward understanding their impact on cultural production, including Jones's focus on early modern [End Page 945] Spanish theatrical practice. In this study the author launches a compelling challenge to prevailing approaches that privilege readings arguing that the performance of embodied theatrical Blackness in early modern Spain was limited to racial impersonation for the purpose of buffoonery. While Jones recognizes the widespread, even dominant performance practices that fit such a description, his analysis uncovers a wider range of possibilities for Black representation on the Iberian stage, about which he articulates two of the book's principal objectives: (1) to identify the "agentive subject positions of habla de negros speakers" on the Iberian stage from the late fifteenth through the end of the seventeenth centuries, and (2) to prove that "black populations of early modern Spain actively participated in the formation of a so-called Black Experience that thrived outside of Brazil, the Caribbean, and the U.S." (14). Jones's approach is marked by the careful application of a wide range of critical theory, while he also displays a gift for identifying meaningful links between the content of his study and eighteenth- to twenty-first-century cultural phenomena in other geographical contexts (specifically the US), including work songs of US Black American slave culture, blackface minstrelsy, and Blaxsploitation films. These comparisons serve to assist Jones as he reads against scholarship that has led to the theoretical oversimplification of the nature of early modern Black theatrical embodiment and rendered silent the Black voices that Jones recovers, voices that "challenge abjection and diffuse the supposed 'power' invested in Western racist antiblack anxieties, stereotypes and subjective insecurities" (20). In chapter 1, "Black Skin Acts: Feasting on Blackness, Staging Linguistic Blackface," Jones identifies and theorizes two categories of embodied performance of habla de negros on the early modern Iberian stage. First, the author makes the important note that Iberian staging practices did not exclude Black characters from being played by Black actors, for which Jones cites a number of examples, dedicating the most attention to La Gloria de Niquea (1622), a play written by the Conde de Villamediana. In its original staging for the court of Felipe IV, a Black actress played the allegorical character Night, alongside members of the royal family and court that made up the rest of the cast. In this section of the analysis, the author mistakenly indicates that Princess Margarita Teresa of Austria (the subject of Velazquez's famous painting Las Meninas) played the role of Beauty, when it was actually her mother, Queen Isabella of Bourbon, who played [End Page 946] the role. But this historical detail is of minor importance to the argument itself, in which Jones reads against traditional interpretations that would prioritize the implications of a reading that viewed the unnamed actress playing Night exclusively as the embodiment of the Other. Instead, he shifts the emphasis to the agency enacted by the Portuguese actress, whose entrance overshadowed the presence of the royal actors onstage thanks to her incredible singing voice ("excelentísima cantora") as chronicled by a member of the audience. The next section of the chapter is dedicated to instances of habla de negros speech acts performed through racial impersonation, which the author asserts should be considered a form of blackface, arguing that examples like the ones analyzed in the book provide evidence that blackface performance can be traced back to early modern European staging practices. Jones identifies the inseparable link between speaking...

Closing Borders and Opening Debate

David Jones begins his position paper (Open borders and closing threats) with a perfectly reasonable question: Where do we draw the line on the adage that 'Good fences make good neighbours?' He then asks, Do longer, higher, barbed-wire, electrified, security-patrolled, and access-controlled fences make for still better neighbours? His answer to this important question can be summed as follows: Who cares! We're doing it anyway.Instead of addressing important questions about where the most effective and efficient security lines can be drawn, Jones offers what amounts to a condescending lecture to Canadians about what we should be doing to help protect American security interests. are still struggling with the costs both financial and philosophical, Jones proclaims, Canadians who whine about our process and/or its conclusions are not helping to resolve the (emphasis added). Unfortunately, Jones never actually addresses the baseline problems, aside from a few sweeping generalizations about how 9/11 define a generation. Apparently, no clearer explanation, reasonably compelling defence, or well-articulated set of arguments is required to help readers understand the relevant political, social, and psychological effects of 9/11, or the various pressures officials face as a consequence of real (and imagined) risks and threats.Jones goes on to argue:Many Canadians present the attitude that the United States is paranoid over border security when we should only be neurotic. In a phrase, 'Humour us.' We may indeed be that batty old Uncle Sam who can be a wingnut caricature in cartoon cleverness, but no wants to be tagged with the responsibility for being the base for terrorists who strike the United States in some future attack.... Ottawa needs to be in the unassailable position that it is clear that Canada went the extra mile to placate the paranoid uncle, because even paranoids have real enemies. And angry paranoids will strike out at the perceived source of injury, regardless of whether they damage themselves as well....What we seek from Canadians is maximum effort to support our interests. Kvetching that we are using too many nails to shut the lDarn door' doesn't qualify as support.The assertion that officials should simply sit back, humour us and let the batty old, paranoid, wingnut of an uncle do the hard work does not amount to a plausible policy position worthy of engaging serious debate: it essentially abdicates the responsibility (obligation?) Jones has, as a former US State Department official who worked on the Canada file, to explain and defend contemporary US security policies. Jones may think he is on solid ground when directing his lecture to whiners, but it becomes a little worrisome when one considers that the exact same complaints are being raised by a growing number of prominent American citizens, scholars, and policy officials who remain equally skeptical about the facts surrounding the risks and costs of globalized terrorism. In light of the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars in homeland security since 2001 (approximately $72 billion last year), Americans are just as motivated to ask perfectly reasonable questions about the true scale of terrorist threats. Insulting critics by telling them to relax and let the folks in Washington handle things (Humour us!) is dangerously reminiscent of the response the US government, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Wall Street investment bankers offered to their critics before the bailout - Trust us!There are at least three problems with Jones's approach, each of which undermines the credibility and tolerability ofhis key recommendations (many of which I endorse). The first problem stems not from Jones's simplistic caricature of Canadian whiners, but his decidedly superficial take on the spectrum of American views and opinions on globalized terrorism and US security priorities. …

Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan by Pamela M. Jones

Federico Borromeo and Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform tn Seventeenth-Century Milan. By Pamela M. Jones. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1993. Pp. xiv, 386, 100 plates. $95.00). Pamela Jones has written a splendid scholarly study of Federico Borromeo (1564-1631), cardinal-archbishop of Milan and younger cousin of Saint Carlo Borromeo, who during his archiepiscopate (1595-1631) established Ambrosiana, an museum, library, and studio for aspiring artists of diocese of Milan. Borromeo's institution was unique in bringing together under one roof artists and work for reforming religious scholarship and figurative arts in response to decrees of Council of Trent (p. 2). Jones's purpose is to analyze and interpret Federico's program for arts so as to enhance our understanding of post-Tridentine attitudes toward style, subject matter, and functions of sacred in Italy circa 1590 to 1630 (p. 19). She focuses on Borromeo's activities and ideas in a way that embraces both his historical and his art-historical interests. Her investigations look at the way and religious thought come together in Borromeo's or,What did Borromeo want out of sacred art, that is, what was his conception of its efficacy? (p. 2). Jones's subject is a significant one, for Borromeo is first prelate in Christian tradition to conceive of creating an entire institution-not just specific works of art-to reform art and make it serve a specific objective. Her method, too, allows us to follow Borromeo in implementing his vision. Jones's work falls into two parts: Part I deals comprehensively with Borromeo's life and background, writings, and foundation of Ambrosian Library, Academy, and Museum; next three chapters offer an enlightening interpretation of this material focusing on tripartite spiritual role-devotional, didactic, and documentary (p. 11)-that was to play. In Borromeo's spiritual conception, each aspect related closely to others in its appeal to full human personality. Part II is a richly detailed catalogue with appendices to supplement Part I. Important here is chronology of Borromeo's acquisitions for Ambrosian Museum. Catalogue I lists entirety of pieces of in original Ambrosian Museum, and Catalogue II includes Borromeo's collection of portraits of famous persons.The work also includes two appendices that include official codicils of 1607 and 1611 to Borromeo's will, listing works of donated to Ambrosiana; Appendix III gives 1618 donation. Readers will appreciate Jones's approach,which goes beyond traditional judgment that artistic production of post-Tridentine era is essentially restrictive and did little more than merely respond to ecclesiastical directives for clarity and simplicity. Jones recognizes that much more was in play: reformers, and their artists as well, pursued richer, less monolithic, and more threedimensional (p. 7) goals than earlier generations of critics have acknowledged. She goes beyond monolithic model of Catholic reformer directing artist's representation of each iconographic detail (much like traditional view of biblical inspiration). …

Reflections on Psychoanalytic Subjectivity and Objectivity as Applied to Anthropology

From the articles in this volume, one can see that psychoanalytic anthropology seems to be alive, and even doing quite well, in the hands of the grandchildren of the ancient patriarchs, Freud and Roheim. I think that a psychoanalytic anthropology and an anthropological psychoanalysis can inform each other fruitfully, and today's panel is a testimony to this. All seems well-the mutually understandable language, and the mutual influences such as structuralism, hermeneutics, neo-Kantian symbology, and general systems theory lead to bibliographies in each field that can overlap and frequently even caress and touch each other. Susanne Langer, Cassirer, Kenneth Burke, Ricoeur, Merleau-Ponty, Polanyi, Kuhn, and Collingwood are mutual friends. Obeyesekere's symbols and Kris's personal myth seem to be compatible concepts-and one could say that for most of us Ernest Jones's approach to symbolism lives only in used bookstores.