Looking at/for Disappearing John Brown

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Looking at/for Disappearing John Brown
• Ben Spatz (bio), SAJ (bio), Eero Laine (bio), Michelle Liu Carriger (bio), and Henry Bial (bio)

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John Brown BBQ in Queens, New York City, https://www.johnbrownbbq.net.

(Photo: Eero Laine.)

In the mid-nineteenth century, John Brown (1800-59) riveted the United States and earned himself an execution with his radical abolitionist tactics encompassing murder and armed insurrection against the United States at Harpers Ferry (present-day West Virginia). Today, his extreme measures ensure his continued circulation across a variety of images and through various investments in his legacy and history. We began thinking together about John Brown precisely because of the promise of collaboration for considering the multifaceted figure that is performed and reperformed on murals and buttons, in sports arenas and bars, on television and in film. The work of abolition is collective and shared, and the political possibilities of the university add up to very little if they remain solitary endeavors. John Brown impels us to gather, to think and work together. Perhaps any one of us alone could have written our article, "The Unbearable Whiteness of John Brown: Theatrical Legacies and Performing Abolition," [End Page E-37] in Theatre Journal's special issue on "Abolition and Performance." But maybe we would not have done so without the others. This is a coalitional approach to political and abolitionist work in the academy. The reading group as a form has a long political history, and in some ways, our collaboration is not so different. From the beginning, however, our work was oriented toward research inquiries and the potential to then share that research with a yet larger circle. It was an opportunity not just to have a few conversations about John Brown, but to make something (an article) about John Brown.

The project began with a semi-open call posted to Facebook. The post was visible only to some, but it encouraged viewers to forward the call to friends and colleagues who might be interested in working toward an article-length piece of writing on John Brown. Many commented on the post, and the current authors were those who indicated their interest in working together. Once the five of us were all on the same email thread (albeit spaced as far east to west on the planet as northern England to California), we met via Zoom and began by discussing our interest in John Brown as a political, historical, and theatrical figure. Our initial interests were varied, and the wide-ranging examples we found of Brown were key to thinking through the article in terms of the multitude of possible John Browns and his persistent performance—of abolition, of whiteness, of masculinity, of Kansas exceptionalism, of other histories and potential futures. We began by adding individual contributions to a shared document. Over the course of various meetings, this work was edited and remixed and rewritten and expanded on toward a shared and cohesive whole. In particular, there was a moment when we moved from sharing and accumulating to pausing, reflecting, and deciding on a shape. We also would share our John Brown sightings from advertisements to businesses and products named after Brown to costumes and art.

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Logo for a brown ale produced by Free State Brewing in Lawrence, KS. Courtesy of Free State Brewing Company.

[End Page E-38]

Although the article and this online introduction are written from the collective standpoint of "we," in the remainder, we've atomized ourselves back into our individualities to converse briefly about the processes and ramifications of collective reading, thinking, and writing and to share some of our favorite images of John Browniana.

What drew you to (co)writing about John Brown in the first place?

Michelle Liu Carriger (mlc):

I would never have thought to tackle John Brown on my own, but for me, a native Kansan, John Brown has been a perennially recurring figure, due to his notorious murders carried out against proslavery settlers in the years before his Harpers Ferry insurrection and probably even more due to the famous John Steuart Curry mural...