Cologne Carnival\u27s Alternative Stunksitzung: Carnivalization? Meta-Carnival? Or Bakhtinian Restoration?

In the 1820s, Carnival in Cologne, Germany, underwent a series of reforms, ostensibly to bring the festival back to the people. Among the traditions that developed was the Sitzung, a theatrical variety-show event, with music, comic speeches and sketches, dance troupes, and various additional Carnival-related entertainments. The shows, and Carnival itself were, and largely have been since that time, mostly overseen by a Festival Committee and the official Carnival Societies it recognizes. In 1984, a group of mostly students decided to create their own version of a Sitzung, an alternative version, the Stunksitzung. From three inaugural performances, it has grown to presenting over forty performances a year to sell-out crowds of one thousand people per night and to being a popular annual television event. This dissertation considers the history of the Stunksitzung within a frame of Mikhail Bakhtin\u27s work on Carnival. I examine over two-dozen performance pieces of the Ensemble, and compare and situate the production and its history within Cologne Carnival, in particular the broader dichotomous status of the official versus the alternative, interrogating how alternative the production is, has been, and continues to be. Ultimately, I frame the Stunksitzung within the larger context of Carnival and the particular status it holds in Cologne

Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias

Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias explores the phenomenon of revivalism in art, architecture and design from the nineteenth century to the present. Essays from leading scholars investigate the meanings and impacts of revivalism across a wide array of global contexts. The book?s three sections are prefaced by critical interventions, which consider the significance of ?nostalgia?, ?anachronism? and ?historicism? as philosophical, cultural, and artistic categories that are as productive as they are problematic. A thematic framework invites parallels between apparently disparate projects, such as resurgences of techniques or materials, medievialism, utopian futurism, empire and style, and the persistence of ?neo? in the midst of an ever-urgent quest for originality. Revivalism?s political, religious and economic dimensions are considered from a variety of perspectives, and the differing registers of revivalism are foregrounded in innovative and sophisticated ways. Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias is the first book to consider these complex processes of historical layering and the stimulating dialogues struck up between materials, objects and ideas that take place across periods and places, often with surprising and controversial results. From Neo-Victorian typography and tattooing to idyllic urban planning and divine revelations, the cultural heft of revivalism is revealed as a constant and paradoxical companion of modernity