Charmaine Nelson is an Associate Professor of Art History, in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, Montreal. Her research and teaching interests include postcolonial and black feminist scholarship, critical (race) theory, Trans Atlantic Slavery Studies and Black Diaspora Studies. Her work examines Canadian, American, European and Caribbean art and culture. She has made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation and Black Canadian Studies. Nelson is also an expert on nineteenth-century neoclassical sculpture. Her research and teaching explore various genres of so-called high, low and popular art forms including photography, prints, sculpture, dress, portraiture, still-life, nudes and landscape art.
Published as one of 28 prints in George Heriot's illustrated book "Travels through the Canadas..." (1807), the foldout print "Minuets of the Canadians" is an intriguing image of Quebec social interaction. The image depicts a scene of merriment; a dance at which a large group of mainly white men and women have gathered to dance the minuet. However, the presence of three black male musicians amongst the large group of merry-makers calls attention not only to the little known practice of Canadian slavery, but to the central role of black males as musicians for their white owners' pleasure/entertainment in various locations across the Americas. Furthermore, the black musicians are joined by two white male ones indicating a level of musical hybridization and cooperation, likely necessitated by the smaller numbers of enslaved Africans in Quebec when compared to other tropical sites of slavery.
This paper will explore the visual representation of the black trio as an indication of the resilience of African musical traditions, which surviving the Middle Passage, prolifically shaped the new hybrid forms of expressive culture in the Americas (including Quebec and Canada). It will also explore the prevalence and implications of an insidious white imperial gaze within the context of African expressive cultural continuity.
Thursday, January 31, 2013, 6-7:30pm
Lectures are held in EV-1.605
The York Amphitheatre (on the ground floor)
Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex
1515 Ste-Catherine Street West. Metro Guy-Concordia.
EAHR's activities are made possible with the support of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art and the Department of Art History at Concordia University.