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Present Enacting Past The functions of battle Reenacting in Historical Representation leigh Clemons battle reenactments function as enactments of history, and their particular modes of representation address questions of authenticity, performance, and meaning. Popular since their initial inception in the 1960s, battle reenactments today boast hundreds of thousands of participants who portray soldiers from wars ranging from the french and indian War to vietnam. Their purpose is twofold: to entertain audiences with a showy display of artillery and to educate these same audiences about the history of the war and the living conditions of the soldiers who fought in it. Reenactors view their representations of history not as performance but as embodiment . Rather than “characters,” they refer to their actions and appearance as “impressions.” The idea is not to represent specific people, although some reenactors do represent major figures as needed (more on that later), but to portray the common solider.This focus on the “average Joe” allows reenactors to sidestep the major ideological arguments that surrounded the war in question, as, for example , in the Civil War, where Confederate soldier reenactors are not bound, in their minds, to have an opinion on slavery. yet reenacting does raise ideological issues, especially with regard to the representation and interpretation of history. What is the event? Who has the “right” to represent it? What is the link of the reenactment event to the “original”? Reenactments occupy a unique space within the field of history and historical enactment.They are events that reference either a specific battle or a specific time, depending upon the war.1 because of this, they cannot be considered battle simulations , or aspects of hyper-reality, as there is a historical event to which they each refer. yet they are not specifically historical, either, because they are reoccurring in present times, causing a rupture between the signifier and signified. As a result , reenactment and the history it purports to enact are trapped together in a symbiotic relationship of progressive clarification and determination, a form of Deluzean ritornello. As Michel de Certeau reminds us, “historical science cannot Present Enacting Past / 11 entirely detach its practice from what it apprehends to be its object. it assumes its endless task to be the refinement of successive styles of this articulation.”2 This oscillating process bounces around in an in-between space whose function is dependent upon how it is observed: as history, as performance, or as education. it occupies a liminal space, functioning as a rite of passage from enacted present into reenacted past. The question of authenticity lurks around every corner of battle reenacting and, in fact, in all aspects of the larger living history phenomenon. Authenticity is a linchpin for reenactors; they judge the impressions of themselves and others by how closely they adhere to the available information about the war being fought.To the outsider, it can seem like splitting hairs, as a successful impression may hinge on a type of button or color of thread. Jenny Thompson recounts an anecdote from a battle of the bulge event where a participant was dressed down by his commander, a confirmed hard-core reenactor, for having 1944 suspenders on his uniform instead of 1943 suspenders.3 Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic contains numerous stories of reenactors striving for authenticity in their impressions , even down to dropping weight to achieve “the gaunt, hollow-eyed look of underfed Confederates.”4 The desire for authenticity divides the reenactment community into two basic camps: the “farbs” and the “hardcores.”5 The term “farb” has several definitions. To Tony Horwitz, farbs are “reenactors who [approach] the past with a lack of verisimilitude.”6 Jenny Thompson defines a farb as “a reenactor who is judged as having failed to establish a legitimate link to history.”7 Hardcores, on the other hand, are the opposite extreme, those persons who go to tremendous lengths to make their impressions as authentic as possible. This farb/hardcore binary is, in my opinion, the core issue for battle reenacting: it encompasses the representation of history, how real is it; the authenticity of that representation, how true is it; and the meaning that can be made from the representation—can those viewing the representation believe it or not? Such a focus means that authenticity, while ostensibly a surface issue, remains a driving force in reenacting and living history circles, at least for the participants. This farb/hardcore binary also asks how far is far enough where authenticity is concerned. Hardcore battle...

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