Description
Book SynopsisSovereign Acts explores how artists, activists, and audiences performed and interpreted sovereignty struggles in the Panama Canal Zone over the last century. By demonstrating the place of performance in the legal landscape of U.S. Empire, Zien transforms our understanding of U.S. imperialism in the Panama Canal Zone and the Caribbean.
Trade Review"By pairing archival research with the analysis of a fascinating array of theatrical and political performances, built environment, and civic recreation, Zien innovatively posits the construction of citizenship and belonging in Panama’s Canal Zone throughout the 20th century as an intricate, performative process. A must-read for anyone interested in sites of contested sovereignty." -- Camilla Stevens * author of Family and Identity in Contemporary Cuban and Puerto Rican Drama *
"Examines the 'performance' of claims to the Canal Zone in popular entertainments, civic pageantry, and other realms reflecting the competing interests of Panamanians, West Indian laborers, and white U.S. citizens; covers 1903 to 1999." * Chronicle *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables
Note on Text
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Setting the Scene of Sovereignty
1 Sovereignty’s Mise-en-scène: The Necessary Aesthetics of New Empire
2 Entertaining Sovereignty: The Politics of Recreation in the Panama Canal Zone
3 Beyond Sovereignty: Black Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Diplomacy in Concert
4 National Theatre and Popular Sovereignty: Staging
el pueblo panameño 5 Staging Sovereignty and Memory in the Panama Canal Handover
Coda: After Sovereignty
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
