Performing the Lost Cause

Catalog description

The myth of the "Lost Cause" developed in the South immediately after the Civil War ended in 1865. It reframed Southern plantation life, the Confederate cause, and the causes for the Civil War to downplay the role of slavery in the War and celebrate Southern culture. The Lost Cause was perpetuated and defined through public art, the theater, music, and (later) films. We will focus on important performative touchstones of the "Lost Cause" such as plantation acts in vaudeville shows, blackface minstrelsy acts, Tin Pan Alley songs, and films. We will also consider how Black Americans resisted the Lost Cause through art they created. Finally, we will examine how the myth of the Lost Cause has impacted the debates today about the meaning and proper disposition of the Confederate flag and the public art and other memorials to prominent figures from the Confederacy and the Reconstruction era.