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47 2 HISTORICAL REENACTMENT: ROMANTIC AMNESIA OR COUNTER-MEMORY? War reenactors and “living history ” groups (who perform for the public only while reenactors perform both publicly and privately) have grown from a small phenomenon when reenacting began to a startling array of contemporary groups and events. In the United States alone, war reenactments draw thousands of participants and spectators each year; in 1998 as many as twenty-five thousand “troops” took part in a huge re-creation of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. Reenactment has grown to encompass nearly every war that has been prosecuted. Who reenacts? What is the appeal? Are all reenactment projects more or less the same in conception and effect ? Is the drive to reenact a traumatic compulsion, a passion for history, or a desire to participate in a grand imagined narrative? How does reenactment intersect with contemporary culture, politics, and society? Although many historians have contempt for the idea of traditionally mounted historical reenactments that re-create what they regard as a mythologized history, a growing number of political reenactments as well as international art exhibitions that have taken political reenactment as their central theme in recent years seek to reframe the past in critical and provocative ways.1 This suggests that reenactment should be seriously considered both as an important aspect of the hegemonic culture of war and as a potentially subversive practice that makes visible forms of violence otherwise historically occluded or forgotten. While some popular reenactments construct, rather than re-create, historic events according to patriotic and romanticized myths, other forms of reenactment bring a violent past into the present in order to call into place a public sphere that not only recognizes those who have become historically invisible but also reckons with the continuing effects of that political repression. In this chapter I want to outline some of the apparent motivations for war reenactment in order to argue that there are two general trends in reenactment: one which aspires to recapture an imagined nostalgic past that focuses on individual experience while affirming dominant historical assumptions, and one that seeks to question entrenched hegemonic narratives by evoking new ways of understanding the past, by keeping alive moments of resistance, or by again making visible what has been publicly forgotten. Many of these forms of progressive reenactment take place in the art world. American studies scholar Jenny Thompson, who spent seven years attending war reenactments and getting to know reenactors, observes in her 48 THE ROMANCE OF WAR book War Games: Inside the World of 20th-Century War Reenactment that war reenactors vary widely in income, education, and profession. They come from all walks of life, including “factory assemblers, computer programmers, construction workers, lawyers, waiters, advertising copywriters , doctors, teachers, bricklayers, and bank tellers; and no single occupation or job type dominates among them.” One of the appeals of reenacting is precisely a disregard for distinctions in class and profession in the democratic forum of reenactment, which “levels the playing field” among participants. Significantly, however, reenactors are overwhelmingly white and male. Of the 3 percent of women who participate, they either play peripheral roles, such as war correspondents, or they reenact as men; blacks are even scarcer. Reenactors range in age from young to old; but most start “the hobby” in their twenties and the average age is thirty-eight. About half admit to being either conservative or Republican; only 20 percent describe themselves as liberal.2 Whether college students, firefighters, or doctors, reenactors fall into three categories: “farbs”—those who spend little time or money in maintaining “authenticity” and might wear modern shoes or smoke a modern cigarette (this is a term used derisively by hard-core reenactors); “mainstream” reenactors who fall between farbs and authentic—they look outwardly authentic but might not wear period underwear or might use modern items after hours; and “hard core,” “authenticity Nazis,” or, as they like to be called, “progressives.” They seek an immersive experience in which, for example, not only is the food authentic but seasonal and regionally appropriate; inside seams are sewn in period-appropriate manner; and they never come out of character.3 The authentic clothing and gear has become big business, and “sutlers” often sell period gear at reenactments. The reproduction clothing and gear needed to reenact is expensive, and estimates of the cost of getting started in the hobby are about fifteen hundred dollars, though one can spend much more.4 The hobby requires months of preparation and is...

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