Street Scenes

Street Scenes

Staging the Self in Immigrant New York, 1880–1924

Esther Romeyn
Table of Contents

$25.00 paper
ISBN: 978-0-8166-4522-0

$75.00 cloth
ISBN: 978-0-8166-4521-3

Negotiates the complex relationship between modern urban culture and immigrant identity.

The turn of the twentieth century in New York City was characterized by radical transformation as the advent of consumer capitalism confronted established social hierarchies, culture, and conceptions of selfhood. The popular stage existed in a symbiotic relationship with the city and uniquely captured the contested terms of immigrant identity of the time.

Street Scenes focuses on the intersection of modern city life and stage performance. From street life and slumming to vaudeville and early cinema, to Yiddish theater and blackface comedy, Esther Romeyn discloses racial comedy, passing, and masquerade as gestures of cultural translation. In these performances she detects an obsession with the idea of the city as theater and the self as actor, which was fueled by the challenges that consumer capitalism presented to notions of an “authentic” self.

It was exactly this idea of “authentic” immigrant selfhood that was at stake in many performances on the popular stage, and Romeyn ultimately demonstrates how these diverse and potent immigrant works influenced the emergence of a modern metropolitan culture.

Esther Romeyn is assistant scholar at the Center for European Studies at the University of Florida.

320 pages | 10 b&w photos | 6 x 9 | 2008

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. The City as Theater: Performativity and Urban Space
1. The Epistemology of the City
2. Detecting, Acting, and the Hierarchy of the Social Body
3. Crossing the Bowery: Female Slumming and the Theater of Urban Space
4. Eros and Americanization: The Rise of David Levinsky, or the Etiquette of Race and Sex

Part II. Stages of Identity: Performing Ethnic Subjects
5. Juggling Identities: The Case of an Italian-American Clown
6. My Other/My Self: Impersonation and the Rehearsal of Otherness
7. The Truth of Racial Signs: Civilizing the Jewish Comic
8. Blackface, Jewface, Whiteface: Racial Impersonation Revisited

Notes
Index

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Street Scenes *Staging the Self in Immigrant New York, 1880–1924* Esther Romeyn Table of Contents		$25.00 paper ISBN: 978-0-8166-4522-0 $75.00 cloth ISBN: 978-0-8166-4521-3
Negotiates the complex relationship between modern urban culture and immigrant identity. The turn of the twentieth century in New York City was characterized by radical transformation as the advent of consumer capitalism confronted established social hierarchies, culture, and conceptions of selfhood. The popular stage existed in a symbiotic relationship with the city and uniquely captured the contested terms of immigrant identity of the time. Street Scenes focuses on the intersection of modern city life and stage performance. From street life and slumming to vaudeville and early cinema, to Yiddish theater and blackface comedy, Esther Romeyn discloses racial comedy, passing, and masquerade as gestures of cultural translation. In these performances she detects an obsession with the idea of the city as theater and the self as actor, which was fueled by the challenges that consumer capitalism presented to notions of an “authentic” self. It was exactly this idea of “authentic” immigrant selfhood that was at stake in many performances on the popular stage, and Romeyn ultimately demonstrates how these diverse and potent immigrant works influenced the emergence of a modern metropolitan culture. Esther Romeyn is assistant scholar at the Center for European Studies at the University of Florida. 320 pages \| 10 b&w photos \| 6 x 9 \| 2008 Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. The City as Theater: Performativity and Urban Space 1. The Epistemology of the City 2. Detecting, Acting, and the Hierarchy of the Social Body 3. Crossing the Bowery: Female Slumming and the Theater of Urban Space 4. Eros and Americanization: The Rise of David Levinsky, or the Etiquette of Race and Sex Part II. Stages of Identity: Performing Ethnic Subjects 5. Juggling Identities: The Case of an Italian-American Clown 6. My Other/My Self: Impersonation and the Rehearsal of Otherness 7. The Truth of Racial Signs: Civilizing the Jewish Comic 8. Blackface, Jewface, Whiteface: Racial Impersonation Revisited Notes Index