Call for paper: Carousels and other colonial spectacles
International conference about performing race and racialization at European courts c. 1500–1700.
The central role of performance in the development and practice of racial categorization and discrimination in Early Modern Europe has found much needed attention in recent scholarship. Within this larger framework, the two-day international conference is dedicated to the “race-making” practiced as part of court spectacles and publicly organized festivities as it had profound impact on the dissemination of racist ideas and stereotypes in Europe.
Call for papers
We encourage proposals for papers from various disciplines including art history, cultural studies, history, literature, and performance studies that engage with the intersections of race and court spectacles across the historical frame and their European and imperial scope.
Questions that this conference aims to address include:
- Exoticism, “race-making” and colonial representation at the Danish court
- Historical perspectives on carousel performances in Europe
- The construction and performance of blackness at court over time in relation to the transatlantic slave trade
- Performing race and the ethnographical gaze: interplays of exhibiting racialized people and the performance of race at court spectacles
- A European subaltern? The dehumanization and stereotyping of peasants, religious, and other minorities in spectacles in relation to colonial racialization
- Performative intersections of race and gender in Early Modern spectacles
- The circulation and use of non-European objects for European court spectacles
- Public spectacles and their aesthetics in the European colonies: similarities, differences, subversion
- The court spectacle as template and aesthetic norm for colonial visual culture and texts
- The popularization and longue-durée of the racist court spectacle
We invite individual and group proposals for 20-minute papers with a special encouragement for contributions by PhD-students and early career researchers. Please upload a 250–300-word abstract with a title, up to seven keywords, and a maximum 150-word biographical note in one document by 15 December 2025. The conference language will be English. Travel costs and accommodation can’t be covered by the conference. Participation and attendance are free of charge. The conference will take place at Copenhagen University, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.