Description
Book SynopsisSemi-Civilized offers a concise, revealing, and analytically penetrating view of a critical period in Philippine history. Michael C. Hawkins examines Moro (Filipino Muslim) contributions to the Philippine exhibit at the St. Louis World''s Fair in 1904, providing insight into this fascinating and previously overlooked historical episode.
By reviving and contextualizing Moro participation in the exposition, Hawkins challenges the typical manifestations of empire drawn from the fair and delivers a nuanced and textured vision of the nature of American imperial discourse. In Semi-Civilized Hawkins argues that the Moro display provided a distinctive liminal space in the dialectical relationship between civilization and savagery at the fair. The Moros offered a transcultural bridge. Through their official yet nondescript designation as semi-civilized, they undermined and mediated the various binaries structuring the exposition. As Hawkins demonstrates, this mediation r
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Complicated and Collaborative Art of Colonial Display
1. Sensational Savages
2. Nostalgia and the Familiar Savage
3. Measuring Moros
Conclusion: The Paradox of Preservation and Performative Extinction
Epilogue
