Transcripts For CSPAN3 History And Hamilton The Musical 20160905

We ought to do what we can to make that happen. Welcome to the panel, the second panel on hamilton. Im r. Bernstein, i teach at the Colin Powell School for civic and global leadership. Id like to introduce my colleagues. And ill introduce them in the order in which theyll be speaking. Well go down the row alphab alphabetical alphabetically. Benjamin carp professor at Brooklyn College. Is he author of defiance of the patriots the Boston Tea Party and the making of america. The Boston Tea Party and the making of america and rebels rising, cities in the making of the American Revolution. Nancy isenberg is the author most recently of white trash, the 400year untold history of class in america, which has just been reviewed by the New York Times book review and the new yorker among other places. Shes also the author of fallen founder, the life of aaron burr, a finalist for the l. A. Times book price and the coauthor from madison and jefferson. His first book was awarded the best book prize from shear in 1999. She is the t. Harry williams professor of lsu. Heather nathans is professor and chair of the department of drama and dance at tufts university. She is author of early American Theater from the revolution to Thomas Jefferson slavery and sentiment on the american stage, 1787 and 1861. And the force coming in, this is the best title of the three hideous characters and beautiful pagans performing jewish identity on the antebellum american stage iim looking forward to that one. She is the author of. Journal articles and edited volumes. Andrew shocket is professor of history and American Culture studies at Bowling Green state university, the author of fighting over the founders how we remember the American Revolution, which i had the pleasure to review and founding Corporate Power in Early National philadelphia. Professor carp will lead us off. How does a show about a bastard, wanker, friend of a banker prized become the toast of shear participants . A 10 man of action, head of faction, i have a whole version of this entirely in verbs. I knew when i started rhyming tim geithner with more whitener i would get myself in a lot of trouble. So ill start by saying what we all confess how often weve seen the show. Ive seen the show three times but never listened to the sound track. Three times was a lot and the songs remain impressed upon my memory. I should confess i dont care that much about the socalled Founding Fathers. While admire all of the great work, lets face it, theyre featured actors in a broader ensemp. I stand for nothing but i want to explain why i fell for the show just as some of its critics did. Hamilton focuses on one of the big six Founding Fathers. Has four as main characters. We need to to know how well and in what way does it engage with the broader history of the revolution. The story dispatches with hadnts early years and the first song takes us from 1774 through the war, the constitution, the washington and adams administrations and election of 1800 and hadnts death in 1804. Given this narrative focus, how well does the show perform as history . Some would say pretty well. Miranda used well researched source as his touchstone. He consulted primary sources directly, quotes them extensively and uses facsimiles of them on stage. He consulted other historical work to get a sense of broader context while mixing in references to hiphop, musical theater. Others would say that the show performs as history poorly. That miranda relied too heavily on cher not who the exaggerated hamiltons sympathy with debtors and celebrated some of his more elitist and antidemocratic inclinations. The problem with this is there was little criticism of the initial biography when it came out in 2004 which left current critics rather poorly equipped to engage in the debate over the quality of the musicals history now. There was a debate over the hamilton exhibit which was there is from 2004 to five. Weve been here before. Ive seen few recent references to that debate either. Secondly, miranda told a story that focused on elite characters. Missing opportunities to show how the revolution and its conflicts affected and was effected by a broader swathe of the population. How the revolution engaged with broader social and political movements, employeded out differents. And as we knowing with any perform you need a robust through line. Thats the gravity that the keeps sucking popular narrators toward the founders. This is why we keep seeing stories of the revolutionary era with comic book heroes anvil lynns. Finally, he told a story with some very Fierce Female characters who dont have a lot of agency and mostly respond to what the men are doing although even here as richard samuelsson, he highlights the and knack crownism of the church asking for womens equality. Theres interesting stuff going on there. Anyway, david fisher once said the patriot is to history as godzilla is to booology. He said that in the times. So whatever criticisms we have about hamilton, it is not this generations patriot. It is better than that in its treatment of history and tats treatment of race. We remember the line from the patriots, sir, were not slaves. We work the land as free men. I saw the movie in london. They liked the caricature of the french officer. So what does the show actually say about the revolution . We won the war. What was it all for . Hamilton rather vaguely answers this question, about gloryseeking immigrants, never mind his material advantages challenging a distant tyrant designed to make the audience feel pretty good about the righteousness of the american cause and the promise of the news nation, never mind the fate of the enslaved and disposses d dispossessed. Never mind the squeeze debtors and whiskey rebellion which was in the Public Theater version of the show or the alienate sedition act. Before the audience can interrogate any of this too deeply, thely brett toe gets swept up in honor bound elites and the personal tradition of the Hamilton Family which in the shows family can be laid at the feet of alexanders arrogance. The show becomes about character invoking who you would rather grab a beer with from the election rather than policy. Interestingly, the show has spec lays hamilton could have done so much more if he had only lived to abolish slavery but spends more time on the notion that his early death gave hip less chance to shape his own legacy. At the same time the show argues that he had already driven himself into political irrevel lags because of his personal foibles. It fuels my skepticism about critics who claim the show is treating hamilton as a lear row. Protagoni protagonist, maybe hero not as much. Criticisms of mirandas sberptration, by ken cohen and others are valid. I want more of them. Im not trying to argue its just a show and beneath our high brow criticism. Popular culture does matter to our audiences and students. Nor would i arguing that miranda somehow puts us all to shame by presenting revolutionary history to a wider audience than we could. rbis at achievements on had your shoulders whether directly or indirectly. We should be able to be have it both ways, give credit for what he gets right and in the end, is it good history is the wrong question . The audience knows its not strict history. Were seeing people break into song. There are all these and knack crownistic references which we love. We are asked to suspend belief. In interesting ways. This is vital to understanding the show and since some of the critics of the show havent seen it and dont get whats there in the lyrics or in the songs is interacting with what the actors are doing on stage or what visual representations are doing to enhance your understanding of whats going on in the show. Theres a drama turg cal problem i think. Instead, what is the right question . In the same way that American Jews have asked is it good for the jews, our tribe must ask, is it good for historians . I would say yes, miranda said he was trying to earn our respect and he does, i would argue, deserve it. For two reasons. One, having to do with race and the revolution. The new yorker reported early on miranda was paying attention to the eric garner case in Staten Island and Michael Brown in ferguson while putting the finishing touches on the show. He says were screaming riseup and a lot of people are feeling that way. While some have been horrified the show has no characters of color, the packet that the cast members are people of color allows miranda to construct the 18th century, connect the revolution to current movements against police brutality, an end to the cycle of vengeance and deathing with no defendants possibly referring to the nonindictment of Police Officer whos cause fatalities. The show has no nonwhite characters. Does the color conscious casting solve the problem or deflect from it . Seth cutler noticed that the show makes kind of a use of prophetic memory that reconfigures the nations past. In order to imagine a better future. Hamilton was not all that antislavery with you miranda stk still cast a work of art that argues for Racial Justice and acceptance of the american dream. Is that provocative or just a erasure of people of color. I should add hamiltons progressive argument in this regard is also about the time honored theme of broadway musicals, be true to yourself, follow your dreams, et cetera. When the producer accepted the tony award for hamilton, he quoted the show how lucky we are to be alive right now by is pretty innocuous but had added poignancy to the audience when the massacre at the pulse nightclub this orlando took place. Great theater heightens our emotional responses. We used the word passionate last night to the wider world and that can be good for leading audiences to a more empathetic broad ranging inclusive innovative investigation of the past. The show is also important in terms of the way it treats historigraphy. Hamilton uses messenger nagtive interventions to fill gasp in the historical record like we do. So i would argue the show enhances the publics understanding of the revolution. At the very least, hamilton encourages audiences to explores historical inquiry further. During the past year, i initiated the Speaker Series at Brooklyn College sbk authors to see how they use treatments in order to illuminate deeper truths about the revolution. So for instance, m. T. Andersons series the astonishing life of octavia nothing or chains and forge and the forth coming back ashes are both series telling a verse of the revolution we would not otherwise have access to. While im ambivalent about the truths hamilton unearthed, i still think the show benefits us as we study the revel ligs by opening questions how we analyze and interpret the past. Just to give you an example in the room where it happens, the company is saying thomas claims. Its a repeated refrain. Well never know what got discusses. Eliza is saying im erasing myself from the narrative. Have you no control who lives or dies or tells your story, washington says. Burr said the history oh blaitbly the rates in every picture it paints. Were constantly trying to tell our students history isnt just a dead recitation of celted facts but lively conversation full of hissing pieces, competing stories and manipulation by leg sig obsessed chroniclelers. Hamilton the show confesses its own portrayal is hardly the only way to tell the story. It recon strucks. He concludes by calling america an unfished sim foe phony. Some observers might be to treat a biography of the 10 founding father as a show celebrating the values of is protagonist. The show strongly argues that it shouldnt can the last stop on the viewers jurn nip. The audience should keep learning, keep looking for inspiration how the story might influence their world and their lives. Its up to us to write our way out of the founders culdesac. Hamilton has made the worldwider for us. Thats worthy of our respect. I have to be your obedient servant. Test. I feel like this is saturday night live. This is going to be the opposite view in a lot of way is even though in certain points i think we do agree. My take is thatting whether professional historians agree or not, hamilton has been widely praise Ford Historical value. Joeds i rosen of the New York Times assertedout qualification that the musical was a riggiously factual period drama. The Washington Post credited the historical hamilton for envisioning the United States as the federal industrial democracy we have today. Opposed to jeffersons agrarian utopianism. They ignore its major and not so hip constituency, the 1 were wealthy speculators. Theater lovers on the internet ardently defend the production was a Genuine Article of history. Charlie rose when he interviewed Linmanuel Miranda for cbs insisted that it was not only history but something that could and should replace all traditional his toxic cal terpgtation. Miranda demurdered but that didnt stop rose publicity centers on ron chern hows biography of hamilton. The same was used for a Television Mini series that claimed to be based on David Mcculloughs biography. It really wasnt. Yet as jerry stern demonstrated in articles, the Television Production was riddled with flagrant errors. I dont remember anyone having a problem with sterns careful survey not just of a selective few of the fak you errors. I think its not nitpicking. Thats a critique that you get for pointing out what i think are more Serious Problems and errors with the musical. I see the musical as far less original than others claim it is. As i pointed out in my washington Washington Post piece, burrs character relies on a well established device used by his political enemies and later fiction writers. The plot device in the musical is simple. Burrs behavior is traced back to the loss of his parents which supposedly led him to lose his moral compass. The lyrics are explicit. Then he becomes the cunning flipflopper who waits to see which way the wind blows. Its developed along predictable lines. We call this type casting. It makes for good opera, but the real historical conditions that shape the relationship between hamilton and burr are irrelevant. Now, for me the most gragg rant bias is hadnts personality is stripped of had his less than desirable qualities. Mirnds has been quite open in saying that hamilton is my man. Americans have always had a knack for turning it the founders into modern day heros. Some call it founder chic. Others the unquenchable desire for myths to sustain patriotic pride. Every generation reinvents the founders in its own image. One reason i think hamilton is so popular is the mixture of innocence and recklessness that is channeled through hamiltons character. Theater goers are treated to vigorous youth, brazen sex appeal, macho brashness, capped off by socalled genius all wrapped up in a loving and whimsical portrait of hamilton who tells it like it is in the pounding nonstop tlimzs of hiphop. But as we know as historians know, hamilton was far more calculating. And at times, could be utterly vicious. He had no love for the unwatched masses. That side never appears because it judd mines what i think is still a heroic story line. As david wrote to me in email, hamilton allows americans to overcome disillusionment with the founders when slavery enters the picture. Though it is clear that hamilton purchased slaves and his fatherinlaw fip lip skyler owned as many as 27 slaves, his caribbeanness is conflated with abolitionism. But the sleight of hand is what makes him be much less progressive. As david summed it up it, desires to offer a an view but really is offering of sabaltan for founder chic. I would add that mirandas goal has more to do with contemporary politics. I have a different connection. His hamilton is a symbol for the age of obama. Liston how nate silver writing in esquire described obama in 2009. Hes the first president who is unmistakably urban, pragmatic, superior, hip, stubborn, multiculture. Mirandas early trial run performance was in the white house. As a consequence of this act of transference, the hick hamilton is a genius, hes pragmatic, concerned with finances and banks, hes stubbornen an clearly the most far fetch fundamental abattribute of at all, hes a hip multicultural pop star. If hamilton is like obama, then the american deem is possible. We also have to seriously evident the media. The wold of theater relies on emotion, creating a fantasy world in which the past is wrapped up in the warm glow of illusion. It is more man plative than dry propose but more fun because its goal is to make the audience repress rationity and endigital in the power of playfulness. Dancing and singing invites the audience to reclaim the naive wonder of a child. The harsh reality of the early republicing is retold as a fairy tale. Campy versions have been around for at least since the early 20th century. Have we allen 1776 so quickly . I grew up loving tap dance. Im fairly certain but now ive been corrected we are the only two on this panel im guess who probably took tap dance lessons. Eleanor powell, fred astaire, jean gelly are my favorite dancers and still are. But i never would confuse singing in the rain with an accurate history of early hollywood. I have a different take on gender. Im actually troubled by what i see is the faux femmismiest skyler sis ferpz miranda has relocated the more credible more genuine 18th sent feminism of aaron burr, his wife and daughter to the more conventional skylers. The reason is obvious. Hamilton must always be the progressive icon. I find it dismissive to refer toll burr has warming her bed. This is the only reference to her without using her name and it reduces his future wife to an adulter and a mistress. Its the same device used with Sally Hemings who was merely mention maryland the interest of attacking jefferson. So my question is, what could possibly be less progressive than to trash the women as a means to bring down the men. The larger difficulty is that this fake feminism is a common pattern and its what i call the Molly Pitcher syndrome. Instead of talking about real feminism and 1th century feminism or describing women as they probably were, popular writers invent a fake heroic female character. Abigail is learning latin. She was not. She is knowledgeable enough in the law to tell her husband how to revise his Defense Strategy in representing the british officers put on trial for the boston massacre and as in any hollywood she, she has to be strikingly beautiful and witty. Enough to you captivate even Thomas Jefferson while in france. The story line thats smart and beautiful women held their own with their male counterparts makes feminism look easy. Tig nors the powerful resistance in the era when it came to treating women as intellectual equals and sanitizes the thinking of most of the founders. Why do we need to elizabeths stand . Why did it take nearly a century Long Campaign to secure the female vote . If the problem was already solved by the founders and the hip women of their generation. I strongly urge all to revisit hamiltons report on manufacturers published in 1791. In which it was quite clear that the classes to be exploited for factory workers were women and children even children of a tender age. Why . Because they were idle and contributed nothing of value to the economy. So yes, hamilton did anticipate our modern industrial economy but one built on the backs of poor women and children. I ask again, what could possibly be less progressive than advocating child labor. This is why the 18th century hamilton cannot be dragged into the 21st century without recognizing that it comes with some unpleasant baggage. Now, several scholars have talked about the racial optics, about erasing the hust of slavery. I would say that it erases all power dynamics, race, gender and class. Hamilton had no desire to challenge the existing social hierarchy. He had to marry into the skyler factory to secure his class reputation. His most powerful allies in new york are either marge naturalize order erased from the musical. His father and his british brotherinlaw, angelicas brother john barker church, hes not there. And angel ca is strangely enough portrayed as unmarried. Elite and ambitious new yorkers build family dynasties and phillip loves both his sons in law and maybe more than his dogs. He needed hamilton in church to advance his political and economic interests in state and federal politics and i think this is what drove hamilton. The musical completely fails to address hamiltons policies and ideas. How can he be a genius if lis expectule world is ignored . Party differences mattered in the 1700s afternoon yet the Federalist Party in the musical, hamilton stands for nothing at all. If hes to be the every man of the american dream, he cant be what the real hamilton was, a vir you lent party man. The election of 1800 is disto distorted beyond recognition. The main point is hamilton determined the outcome confident election. He supposedly voted for jefferson which led to the landslide victory and burrs defeat. In fact, hamilton did not determine did the outcome of the election or break the election three. Games baird of delaware a nobody nobody cares about is the only manor had that kind of influence and he didnt liston hamilton. And what happened to all of hamiltons underhanded efforts to defeat john adams . I find it strange the musical calls hamilton an orphan, the son of a whore but governor knifeds it was adams to gave him that ignominious title the bastard brat of a scotch peddler. Their messy relationship would completely undermine the noble and tragic portrait of hamilton. As obvious, the unrelenting antiimmigrant policy of the Federalist Party is absent from the score to alou hamilton who was born a british subject, like nearly everyone else in the founders circle to be the immigrant made good. A more accurate musical about the immigrant experience would be named gallatin. Heres the story of a swiss immigrant mocked for his french accent, hounded by the federalists and who with him in mind crafted a constitutional amendment that aimed to denim grants the right to hold public office. Isnt this the history americans need to know about . And by the way, he has a statue outside the treasury building, as well. Historians should discuss the obvious biases. Ive designed a course called americas founding myths and the final assignment is to write a critique of hb os john adams. Isnt this the kind of critical perspective we should teach students you . Lift should not be about entertaining our students. At what point do we surrender to Popular Culture and reinforce the irrelevance of professional history . Many score lars probably in this room would probably think its already too late. My point is lets stop calling it history when its entertainment. The broadway hit musical is a fictional rewriting of hamiltons life plain and simple. Does that detract from its entertainment value . No, enjoy the music. Laugh at the jokes. Appreciate the social commentary on our current political environment. A fictional heroic hamilton and his predictable foil burr steal the show. But the historical hamilton and the historical burr are there in name only. Thank you. And now for something completely different. So in his 1857 fashions and follies of washington life, a political comedy, henry claypies Alexander Hamilton against Thomas Jefferson as part of an argument between two warring politicians. One hotly defends hadnt as a mighty genius who taught the doctrine of union and consolidation. And claiming that it would be a gross profanity to compare hamilton to jefferson. His opponent retorts, it was the jeffersonian democracy that first developed and brought into action the power of the masses. While both men lament the sorry state of the rising generation of young politicians, they also ignore divisive issues of race and slavery that imperil the nation. Yet, slaves in this case white actors in black face, hover on the fringes of the comedy including a slave named tom who was born in the same year that the constitution was ratified and who lingers in bondage as a symbol of its most serious failure. Priuss play is one of nine dramas in the first half of the 19th century from 1802 to 1864 that invokes hamilton either as a character or by reputation. Yet, obviously, hamiltons theatrical usefulness has persisted for more than two centuries. From the satirical pages of john nichols closet drama the essix junt toe to the broadway triumph of mirandas hamilton, play writes have found Alexander Hamilton, political genius, a compelling subject in part due to this outsider identity that seems to have dogged his career. Through their explorations of hamiltons life, they illuminate critical moments in the nations passionate and often painful debates about race, citizenship and belonging. Im particularly interested in the ways in which slavery cycles in and out of these dramatic conversations. And i can only begin to scratch the surface of these topic here but i hope well have time to explore them in our discussion. So during a 2008 interview about her stifd aaron burr, Nancy Isenberg observed that history is created by archive. Citing the often lopsided treatment that he certain historical figures receive based on what remains in the written record and then how those materials are interpreted by successive generations of scholars. Theater historian diana taylor would argue that history is also created by the repertoire. The performances that are repeated and recycled beyond what is preserved in the written record. And that these performances are equal vital in interrogating our history. And this is especially important when considering questions of racial representation in history where the archive also often falls silent. And its critical i think to understanding the revolutionary impact of mirandas hamilton. In some ways, mirandas memory project is similar to another drama featuring Alexander Hamilton, this one from 1864. In the prologue, play write George Henry Calvert claims that the purpose of historical drama is to use imaginative power to give a more vivid embodiment than can be given on the literal page of history, no the to transform but to elevate and i mate an enacted reality. Nickles miranda and other play writes have all used hamilton. Immigrants and race to elevate and i mate the enacted reality of slaverys history in the United States. The 19th century stage shared the same uneasy relationship with representing slavery as many politicians and private sizs of the period. Slave characters playing amusing electricsters and only very rarely voicing any open anger at their enslaved status. And with very few exceptions such as the african grove theater in 1820s new york where the historionic club of 1850s boston, none of the slave characters witnessed by american audiences were 0 portrayed by actors of color. No matter what the rhetoric, whether it was pro or antislavery, it was voiced by white performers. And taking a stand on slavery often proved dangerous for theater managers either in the form of Box Office Failure or physical attacks by the audience on the play house. More than two centuries after Alexander Hamiltons theatrical debut, lynn manual miranda as a hamilton bodies forth the complex racial identities of the post revolutionary and modern periods creating a kind of calculated friction between traditional representations of our white Founding Fathers and the men and women on stage in the Richard Rogers theater on broadway. Scholar and playwright Carlos Morton describes mirandas work as a play of mixed ancestries and what morton calls hybridity in action. Theater historian observes weaving a hiphop sensibility into the fabric of the american musical tradition means threading through after coamerican musical, oral, visual and dance forms and practices. Hamilton makes visible after codiasupport rick in American History in the face ive larger history, not the folks in this room that rarely recognize it. Mirandas musical and his color specific not color blind casting reminds audiences that who tells your story remains the critical challenge not only in representing but representing the history of race in early america. And his hamilton invites artists and audiences to invoke the power of performance in reimagining our most familiar narratives as well as the stories of those whose lives have not been preserved in the archives. As observed, this racially conscious casting tells a story bound by race. Issues of racial representation as well as questions of slavery and citizenship surface as we know in hadnts very first number when jefferson describes hamiltons youth in the west indies and every day while slaves were being slaughtered he struggled and kept his guard up. Yet, despite these inclusions, mirandas reference to slave transport and slave labor, to black revolutionary soldiers, jeffersons casual request that his lamb sally open his mail, herrera comments what remains audibly sigh flent lin manual mirandas hamilton is the violent history of slavery. She doesnt fault miranda. Rather sees it as a limitation of the jenra, a challenge that faces both the archive and the repertoire. In his notes to thely brett toe for hamilton, miranda comments that be hamiltons early life was marked by a firsthand view of the brutal practices of the slave trade. The challenge for miranda or any artist becomes how to represent or real present that brutality in a theatrical form. Indeed for more than a country, playwrights of color have struggled to stage the countrys history of racial oppression or in the words of former slave turned playwright William Wells brown to, show what he never can be represented about slavery. So take for example, in the 20th century, suzanne lari parks drama the america play which depicts a black Abraham Lincoln being assassinated over and over again in a kind of demonic Carnival Game which presents riz citizens of color dig digging in the archive to unearth archived documents that might conjure their long lost or deliberately erased past. In his obi Award Winning drama, roberto hera sends his modern gay black protagonist spiraling back through history to nat turners uprising in the early 19th century to represent the stories of slave whos fought in that rebellion. Tony Award Winning playwright augusts wilson gem of the ocean brings citizen barlow back to the city of bones under the Atlantic Ocean to visit the men and the women who died during the middle passage, deaths that left no names in the archives. Each of these artists has tried to imagine a way to stage the violent history of slavery anton put those stories in the mouths of nonwhite performers. As john ernest argues, authorize of color have often been forced to tell crooked histories against dominant white narratives that have repeatedly misrepresented and misrepresented their experiences. And in deliberately dividing the syllables representing im not just trying to be annoying. I question how repetition and restaging privilege or challenge depictions of race. Marvin carlson describes this phenomenon as ghosting. Suggestinging that every performance is inevitably haunted by its president seszers or its real life counter parts. Mirandas hamilton conjures a stage full of ghosts. In terms of the Founding Fathers but it also harkins back to a complex narrative of the way that slaverys history has been told on stage for two centurieses. In the essex june toe, the First American play to depict hamilton, playwright nichols casts hamilton as conniving, lustful general revolution, and it says hes the would be assassin of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and complicit in the uprising. Nichols describes hamilton but without irony. And with fear about what hamiltons identity as a potentially racially marked immigrant outsider means for the future of the new nation. In seeing hamilton as the unasimilarable immigrant, nichols diverges sharply from the best known example of the character on the Anglo American stage. The popular drama the west indian, the show you couldnt kill with a meat ax, tells the story of a west indian plantation owner coming to london to meet his father. Cumberland presents him as passionate, and unrestrained. He has little awareness of social niceties. He literally lashes out when people refuse to make way for him in crowded streets excuses himself by saying, i proceeded a little too roughly to brush them away with my strict. While slave characters appear in the west indian, they have neither lines or names. They are here to serve as tangible symbols of his wealth. Bell kerrs land of slaves. It recognized that questions of slavery and immigration remained unresolve even after the nation declared itself independence and created its constitution. And scores of other dramas wrestled uneasily with this rhetoric of slavery and citizenship spoken in slave houses staffed by slave behind the scenes. White bodies in black face, brown face or red face served as surrogates for those absent from the discourse on stage. Much has been made of mirandas choice to represent the history of the American Revolution with a multiracial cast and the implications of having this actor play hamilton and africanamerican actors play Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Do they become new surrogates for the Founding Fathers. Are they ghosted by their white counter parts or can they serve to expand the repertoire through their complex history. Perhaps the test for hamilton will be its tour and legacy. If it changes casting practices on broadway, if it changes the questions we ask about who could body forth or his trr or whose stories can be represented in the repertoire, then it will be a revolution. I want to close with an epilogue about the revolution from 157 years before hamilton. On march 5, 1858, the First Anniversary of the dread scott decision africanamerican abolitionist and play Wright William cooper them restaged the massacre down at the hall. And them did it in part to commemorate scott and in part to protest a recent ruling by local boston authorities that they could not declare christmas addicts the first victim of the revolution. Thems restaging of the massacre used all black performers to protest their systemic erasure from the history of the revolution. It also forecasted a day when they might rise up. In that them resembles miranda who said one of the reasons he became a play wright is there were no parts for me. They had written themselves into the archive and the repertoire. Thanks. [ applause ] so heather, you put this in put hamilton in a longser chronological context and im going to put it more in a, in a much more contemporary context thinking about other similar productions which i think are a lot more similar than maybe we realize about hamilton. Recently the american public, as a lot of us know, has become increasingly e thnamored with t stories. Hamilton sits with an emerging entertainment drama that makes sense for the culture industry kwl many hollywood, new york and for anxious u. S. Audiences at this particular cultural moment. We already know the outlines of the story and the setting. They are heroes with recognizable qualities. Washington, adams, franklin but in distinct and detail in the public imagination so writers can play with them. The villains are ethically british to minimize the possibility of Public Relations blowback. Nobody likes slavery, the true brutality of which is not shown. Which is w women can be strong characters while Still Standing by their men. Plus wigs, corsets and by the way i used to work at Colonial Williamsburg and i do look great in britches. This is my moment. Okay. But and of course we already know the outlines of the American Revolution or at least we think we do. But there remains plenty of leeway for individual story to parallel the bradder historical events. These parameters both structural and permeable recognizable to be marketed successfully appeal to wide audiences and allow for intervention. And for outlier to provide an interesting counter point. Because of the popularity and prevalence of these productions, they also provide the plotting through which the general public i think will increasingly understand the american founding. Today im just going to talk about three general elements that these productions share where hamilton fits in all of this and why its important. Now for the sake of brevity, im not going to wade into the thicket of debates concerning exactly what constitute a genre and how genres work because thats a sub field of academic inquiry. Rather im going to use a definition suggesting that we should think of genres as sets of conventions. Culturally and historically con ten gentleman and that texts, whether that ear movies or Television Series or in this case a musical, are spaces that allow for engagement with one or more genres. In other words for my purposes today, the most useful way to think about genera is not as just a category that we can put things in, but as a set of conventions and a particular time and place that say a movie or a novel or musical is both shaped by and perhaps shapes. Hamiltons commonalities and diversions indicate that its creators were more than they way. And they will be made and watched with these conventions and hamilton in mind. So just to talk about some of these and over the last 15 years and especially since 2010 the founding era and roughly, what, say the 1770s through 1800 has become a setting for a lot of big budget and prominent productions for film and television that play with their conventions. Ill go through some of them or most of nem in chronological order. Youre going to be familiar with a lot of these, the crossing, the patriot, benedict arnold, the question of honor, an american girls adventure. That went straight to dvd. I know you have that at home. John adams, turn washington spies, sons of liberty, book of negros, Sleepy Hollow fits into this a little bit. Thats a documentary series. No. Its not. Its not. And of course you know hamilton, right. And my argument today about the recent coaleskrencent coalesce preclude or thinking about their earlier films as belongs although we should note that those audiences may have thought of them differently, perhaps as history films. The same way that many films of the late 1940s at the time were considered fell lo dramas or detective or mystery or crime movies and only later were they thought and sort of about and lumped more broadly as film knew rar. How people write about them and remake them. So here im going to just talk about three major conventions. First, patriotism is the protagonist position of course open its assumed of all angelo americans, right . The good guys are indeed what American Culture culted as good guys, heterosexual white men. In these productions markers of british deviants include cowardness and brutality. Theyre painted these characteristics as being deviant. Patriotism is a libertarian view of freedom, definitions of liberty. Let me take a survey here. Whos for liberty . Yes. Good. Youre already with the protagonists. Excellent. Thats easily explained quickly on screen. That said if a character becomes a patriot, he does so in reaction to british violence against people and property. Why . Because thats easy to portray quickly, easy to understand. You brought up john say dams early. Think of that series. When does he become a patriot . When he sees the aftermath of violence. I see violence. Bad. Thats easily explained. That happens to townsends father in turn, actually. And here we can be mindful of so for example, alexander rose, the author of washington spies and a consultant to the show says history is complex and drama is simple. You know, you have to find short hands to convey a lot of information visually and quickly. And third and finally an resolution of conflict comes through unanimity among americans resulting from the expulsion of the deviant opposition. So in other words just as the central tension in westerns is the use of violence to establish order, or in romantic comedies, the surrender of individual independence to traditional ma nothing fi, or in mobsters films, loyalty over law, in American Revolution productions its about the establishment of american consensus through exclusion. Now hamilton gauges with all three of these conventions in ways that confirm and to some extent expand them. In terms of my first convention, who are the protagonist, the revolutional men established there, heterosexual bonn fee thats, you can think in the song winters ball when friends saying theyre reliable with the ladies, right . And theyre contrasted favorably against the flamboyantly floppish king george who in tone and demeanor more plays the queen, right. So support for independence is taken as a given with the opposition koud wardly, brutal and e fem anytime. In terms of the second convention, they fight for a libertarian strain of freedom as with other examples of the genera, all of hamiltons protagonists embrace revolutio or remain silent. As has been talked about yesterday and today, alexander mocks jeffersons civic lesson from a slaver and after his death eliza claims that alexander could have done so much more. I dont know why you take issue with that. He did almost nothing when he was alive so he could have done more. Maybe thats just a valid statement. And its the Third Convention i suggest, the establishment of united nation, a United States through the exclusion of tv and others that hamilton has played with in two notable ways have generated the most conversation. One of course is in its deaf nation of whos included and whos not. Its hamiltons intentional casting of people in color and using hip hop seems to defy my suggestion of genera, notwithstanding their inclusion masks hamiltons otherwise conventional storylines. But to think about this again when, you know miranda first publicly performed the rap that opens the musical in the white house in 2009, you probably in youve watched this, he actually got big laughs for introducing it as someone quote who embodies hip hop, secretary Alexander Hamilton. And of course why is that, why is that funny or why do we find that a contradiction because we do have those expectations about by whom the founders will be portrayed and how. And of course thats how generas work, through a collection of these conventions that allow for quick recognition and surprise when one of them is flouted. Now, i do want to talk about the objections of various critics. And of course none is more direct than reed in his piece titled black actors dress up like slave traders and its not halloween. That sums up a good deal of his position that hamiltons casting of people of color merely provides cover for a traditional white reading of the revolution. Weve talked about that and i, you know, that i dont disagree with that at all but i also think we shouldnt entirely discount the effect that hamiltons casting has had on its extremely diverse audiences. The cast albums unprecedented sales success, number one on the billboard rap chart for a while, serving as the inspiration for countless internet mashups, appearing in television shows, magazines. How many people are parents of ad les accidents in this room. Youve heard it at home. And the way it displays a conventional story, it allows for people of color to see themselves as belonging to the founding and vice versa. Similarly hamiltons a historical emphasis on hamilton and their nonnative status, immigrants, we get the job done, brings immigrants into the founding. Again its a complete aknack nichl. But these inclusions can change the perceptions of viewers concerning who belongs in the founding. This was a big debate. I dont know how many of you are familiar with libertys kids. That was a big debate. How do we show a founding for kids who dont see themselves in the founding. Its a serious question to grapple with. And of course the dram tie zags of the cabinet debates and other political battles in the second act. And i completely agree with critics is that a lot of it is devoid of the actual of the actual issues right in the debate. But at least and in some way it trivializes it. But in some way admits that americans did have divisions among people who were nonetheless equally patriotic. And i think thats but in other ways, of course as other people pointed out, it does follow the familiar path trod by nearly all other popular depictions of the founders giving audiences comfortable tropes on which to rely at the same time it defy as few of the generic conventions. So i what is this important . Again, im not talking today merely to create a category or a box that we can say, theres a founders film. Click and put it in there. But to suggest that we think of it as one of the latest and most influential of what i think is an emerging category of cultural productions that very much condition how the general public perceives the founding period. And i think i predict that were going to see a lot more of these productions because, of course, you know, the cultural industry is very much a copy cat industry, something successful. We make more of them and people will watch them. Why . Because theyre familiar. Because people can see a 15second preview and know what that story is going to be about. And i think it should be of great interest to us as teachers and scholars of the public because these recurrent characters, setting, plots, themes shape how the general public perceives what the founding was about, who participated and what it means. Especially because and this is a point youve all brought up on how visceral these an emotional the connections that these create in peoples minds, that these impressions are far more memorable than most of what the public may i be her rhett call . Some of this stuff is even more visceral and exciting than some of our own writings, even mine. Even mine. And of course theres you know, theres even been Psychological Research showing that someone will show a history film to students and the professor will say, all these things are wrong about it. But when you test the students afterwards what do they remember . They remember what they saw. And as you know, i mean, also just sort of just important for us as citizens, and as residents of the United States when people see the founding on screen or on stage they project that on to their ideal vision of our society, how it should work and who belongs. And as we can see from todays politics, apparently there was recently another, almost another big National Meeting as important as ours going on in cleveland recently. As we can see from todays politics, those questions, especially who belongs and how we engage in conversation are still at the heart of what we debate about the American Revolution and our current american paldy. Thank you. [ applause ] now as chair im going to come in for just a few minutes and im going to begin with the question that all these fine people posed. What should we think about plays and films based on but veering from history, like hamilton. These Superb Papers offer an array of answer to that question. It was a pleasure to read them, to ponder them and to struggle to find contrasts and commonalities among them. When i was preparing for this, i was talking to one of my colleagues at city college and he told me its simple. When you watch a play you have to decide what your mindset is. If you seek entertainment. See if it entertains. You if youre going to assess it as history. This is a danger. Does a place fictionizing of history impose on nonhistorians a way to see the history, negating whatever good we do . Ill give you one example not from our field. I know renaissance is starting to go ballistic over man or all seasons. And then there are other renaissance historians what hate another one. I cant resolve it. Id like to begin with Nancy Isenbergs critique of hamilton and other pseudoworks such as 1774 and the hbo john adams. I think she throws valuable cautionary buckets of cold water on the rest of us. I agree with her criticisms in general, her criticisms of these works and of some of our colleagues who too readily ignore the flaws of popular histories and works claiming to present history. I think we must be more vigilant about distorting the past. In particular the all too frequent tendency to turn 18th sently founding guys into con temporary heros. I find the equation of hamilton with barack obama more ingenious than thoroughly convincing. But one thing worries me. Like a soccer referee welding a red card to drive somebody from the field, isenberg warms dramatists off the field of history. Yet for centuries, dramatists and novelists have appropriate history for some of their most interesting work. Given the inevitability of such appropriations, arent such absolute bans impossible goals. And if they are, what do we do about them. No play or film can capture the complexity of history. We know that. As my friend, a documentary screen writer taught me, a standardly formatted scrip for a 90minute film is 100plus pages. You cant cover any subject fully in that short of space. Y we know that. Of course those who writing know that not one book with capture something fully. But we wont stop writing books. What do we do with it . How do we astesz it fairly without asking too much of it. Writing as a historian Andrew Schocket persuasively argues that three conventions help to thrive the genera, patriotism, a quasi liberty of freedom reacting by bad things that binds american to the good cause. And nun anymorety among americans excluding those bad things as the critical factor in victory of that good cause. And yet schocket argues that hamilton challenges the conventions, reshaping them while reaffirming them. The hixson of challenge and after makes, of forcing us to think about who gets to claim inclusion in the story of the revolution and the divisions among them does much to explain its power and influence. Benjamin karens paper resonates with Andrew Schockets. He seeks to con tech chulize hamilton, assessing what it gets right and wrong. He addresses race and resolution in todays climate and opens to the audience to engage in arguments about what story to tell about the revolution, whose story to tell and what forms these stories take. The play itself teaches that hamilton should not be and i quote the last stop on the viewers journey. And now again we turn to something completely different. Any chance of invoke monte python is good. An expert in drama, heather nathans, in one of her many points about the story she tells so well, she points out that what so many critics have seen as new challenging features of hamilton actually echo previous works from a previous century or two. Recall for example the one i wish i had been there to see. The 1858 in boston, organized by William Cooper them reenacting the boston massacre with an all black casting. Dont you just wish you could have seen that. Nathans remarkable paper reminds us that the question asked my hamiltons closing song, who lives, who dies, who tells your story resonates with many dramatic attempts to grapple with the issue of whose revolution it really is and what kind of revolution it is. Now im going to risk trespassing on nra nathans field by paralleling the papers of schocket and carp. Dramas best reshaper of history, william shakespeare. I argue that e should see hamilton as what i call shakespeare history. Think about julius caesar. He reshapes roman geography and includes aknack nichls as striking clocks. But what works as history is his plays human core, the dying roman republican, struggling to and a half gait the Political Forces over which they have no control, senator assassins desperately seeking to store the republic that was shattered beyond repair, and the cold rutsless men. Hamilton too is firmly grounded in its human core, presenting it skillfully and effectively, hamiltons ambition, selfishness and self destructiveness. The virginian pervading Thomas Jefferson. The skyler sisters to become part of the narrative in a male political world. In the world of hamilton, politics is a human pursuit shaping and reflecting its participants human reality. Hamilton teaches that politics is and must be hard work, a valuable lesson that we need now more than ever, especially after cleveland. Though its sketch of the politics to have 1790s cannot meet the test of modern scholarship, it gets many of the years scenes right. I would like to invoke in this connection the song one last time which may not present fully, but gets to the quandary facing George Washington as the leader of a revolution who knows that he must step aside from power and figures out a way to do so if i conclude that we need not worry about hamiltons reshaping of history, why not. I submit we need not worry because we need not worry about our students so pineally accepting the play as historical reality. Students in middle schools, high schools and colleges are fascinated not just by the play but on the history which it draws. Theyre not content to settle for the story of hamilton. They want to know the stories giving rise to the story. This play has spurred their desire to learn as a generation before the play 1776 did. Growing out of that reality in todays classrooms is the likely impact of hamilton on our professions future. Again like the impact of 1776. That earlier play drew many of us, including me, to the history of the revolution in the early republic. Ten to 20 years from now, we may see a similar influx into our profession of Young Scholars who saw or listens to hamilton and never got over it. If those of us who 1776 drew into this field have done some good in our writing and teaching, maybe our field also will benefit from byproducts of that remarkment contemporary version of history, hamilton. Thank you. [ applause ] so given that this is a round table, i think we hope to a square round table a rectangular round table, we should talk amongst ourselves and figure out what we quantity to say to each other the enlighten you. Once we do that well open up to questions and this gentleman holding the microphone has got the microphone and please do not ask a question unless you are indeed holding the microphone. To that extent were going to emulate that awful show survivor. Anybody want to start . Im happy. Go forit. Im happy to throw tight the audience. Does everyone want to throw it open to the audience and see what happens . Sure. Does anybody want to ask a question . I see one man. I want to rip a little bit of what you had to say in terms of shakespeare as the model for hamilton. I taught them as commentariries on 20th century cultural history. Whether they got it right is completely irrelevant. In that spence i would like to put hamilton in a context that andrew got a bit. You mentioned the book of negros and im horrified to find that most people in the country of my complexion dont know of it. This is a wonderful novel, a black woman enslaved in africa who lives through the revolutionary period. I discovered it when it was writing my own book on that subject and i thought ive been scooped by a novelist. That book is just as powerful to me as hamilton and its historically an awful lot more accurate. But thats not the point. Hamilton takes its play along with that and the other things that you mentioned and along with the turkeys as jefferson and paris and revolution, in terms of a larger discussion of both revolution and race in this country. So i would like to locate the play in the context first of all what larry hill does in book of negr negros. Secondly in the mod tern cycle of hollywood films trying to address this. I want to call everybodys attention to et of the nation. Not the one about the ku klux klan but the one about virginia in 1831. It will be released in the autumn. I encourage everybody to see it and i encourage everybody who is interested in what hamilton has to say to see what that film has to say. Thanks. I would like to respond very briefly and say that in some ways what youre saying also references a film that we all saw and a book that many of us have read, and thats 12 years a slave. And i remember one of the most horrifying things about the cultural response to that play that book and that movie and that was the comment about certain right wing commentators that this was ignorable because it with us slavery porn. I have no idea what slavery porn is and i still dont know. All it was saying was i dont want to know the truth about slavery. This confronts me with the truth about slavery so its slavery porn because it makes me feelic ki. Fine. We have to feelic ki and we want our students to feel ic ki about this. I agree and disagree or i have several thoughts i guess. And thats that i see it maybe as more of a continuum of memory with maybe, you know, disciplinary history at one end and all of these other things and some coming maybe some films are, you know, more are trying to capture some sort of memory and some not. So we think of for example, i think hamilton is at least attempting to wrestle with memory. We may or may not agree with how it does that as opposed to Something Like i dont know if any of you have seen sons of liberty. So sons of liberty you can learn all you need to learn about it by hair. One is it shows franklin in the 1770s and even then theyre showing him bald with the stringy hair. Why did they do that . Its because thats what we recognize as audiences. And the other is they start out with its ben barnes is the guy that plays sam adams. In the first shot you see him, you see him with the beautifully, you know, manicured like scruff and everything and hes playing and hes what, 32, i think, when that was shot . So its beautifully manicured chin and everything. And for those of you who have seen the portrait of sam yellue adams with, he didnt have a manicured chin. Some of this is about the presence. Some of them do take the past more so i think its so i think its a continuum of memory, maybe. But you know so i im sorry. Thats okay. Anybody else . Well i wanted to pick up on a word that you used in your talk. Uhoh. Not in a bad way. The word prophetic. Wait actually im sorry. I lied. Ben used prophetic. I used it well. You used it well. I should have looked at my notes. I was intrigued that you used that because thats a tradition that starts immediately after the revolution in american drama. They start prophesying, they use the history to prophesy whether its in the Indian Princess when john smith at the end says i foresee a day when this nation will separate from the old corrupt influences of europe et cetera. Theyre continually forecasting the idealized future and theyre using their own history to try they go back and reinvent it to show you well the seeds were always there. And its not just theater. No. John adams is writing letters back and forth. Rush writes to adams about dreams that he has that are prophesies. And adams takes them with great compliment because the prophesies make him into a hero. And adams says thank you, i hope that works. It may be prophesy. But this theme of prophesy is everywhere. Again, isnt this part of the problem . I mean this is again conflating religious notions with historical notions. And part of the problem with the seeds being planted that we assume its going to be a gradual release of the virtues that trace back to the founders. And its a narrative that we like because we want to assume the evolution of progress when in fact the history discounts that. Even in the basic rule of suffrage. Its not a gradual expansion of the right of suffrage. So part of the problem is exactly what youre talking about. Shakespeare history, nobody calls it history. We call it literature. Its taught in english departments. But the other thing is just to think about how these powerful narratives eclipse important elements that we as historians spend time recovering, talking about, think have to be part of a narrative. And the power, theres no doubt the power of the drama is about typecasting, about the music and about getting people to believe in something. Yes. But is it what we want people to believe . The question ill ask in hamilton, does it inspire us to go out and change the world . Well, i have to say it inspires some of my students to do that. Some of your students. But im saying there are different narratives. I would give a counter narrative that would offer a critical critique that would inspire people to maybe take a different political stance. We cant assume that the narrative or the musical encompasses everything that we want it to that it embodies certain political values that we some of us here obviously like it. Thats fine. But i think we have to always stay on our critical edge. Because Popular Culture is about diminishing a more radical political perspective. Particularly when it becomes widely pop you already. Different people have different interpretations of what hamilton means. It can be interpreted in a conservative way and a comforting way. And to me thats a problem when you feel comfortable. We shouldnt feel comfortable about our past and we should want to kind of have a narrative that provokes us at all times and not and i dont want to diminish i think race is very important but i dont want to diminish class and gender which always seems to get thrown out the window. That should be part of the discussion as well when we talk about politics and power. So if i can piggyback on what you were saying, it feels to me that there are moments in hamilton where he is stepping outside and critiquing. And i wonder to what extent those wreck teeian moments are legible to all audiences and to what extent people just assume thats cool. Because were used to people breaking frame, posing the question and hopping back in frame. This wreck teeian theory is you should leave the theater ready to do something rather than that was nice and im humming it. I think he is working with that. It may be that one so sums the other depending on the audience member or its overwhelmed it entirely. Theres a brilliant movie which does that. I cant remember the title. Its brilliant. A play within a larger story and its all about the engagement of creating the fiction, creating the story, engagement of the actors, the problem of talking to the audience. Its effective. Of course its british. Very effective critique of this dynamic. And i think this is an important dynamic to talk about the production of meaning. And i think there are gestures of it but not enough because you have to actually you have to deconstruct the myths that you have celebrated here. I do think its a celebratory. What hamilton has is being celebrated in the musical. Any questions from the audience . I see several hands. Yes. If we could come youre already up. Im sorry. Im going to preface this question by stating i have not seen the musical but i understand that a significant portion of it is a love story that involves eliza and reynolds and those types of things and thats one of the levels in which it works as a musical, as a story. And im interested in that aspect and how it interfaces with history. My reading of hamilton the person is that he was a profoundly emotional man for whom emotion was a significant driver of his actions. And im curious, that issue has been left largely on the table both by this panel and last nights panel. Its lurking under the sub text. But what about the emotional history of the revolution period and the early republic. Why and how did people fall in love, express their love, how did it manifest themselves, were they motivated to action by the site of violence. Why and how is that accurate . Why are we leaving that issue on the table . Thank you. I think that can get very tricky because of course then our understanding of what love means and what 18th century peoples idea of what love means, it takes an effort to translate that or honor or anything else. And so i dont know that you know, i mean its so easy to kind of like quote from you know, its interesting, right because miranda talks to him about the people writing to him trying to get a relationship between john morons and Alexander Hamilton and all of the things that modern audiences want to read back into 18th century correspondence because they dont quite get how the people of the 18th century are using some of that emotional language. I think that would take a lot of hard work to translate for a 21st century audience how 18th century people are experiencing certain emotions. Im avoiding the specifics that youre talking about because i dont really care. But youre asking more interesting question i think about how we how we or an artist can recapture the emotional planned scapes of the 18th century. Thats just as challenging as recapturing the politics or a whole host of issues. And i think thats what the historians are trying to work on these days. Theres one emotion i think that the play does try to address and thats not love but fear. Is this going to work. Is this experiment going to fail. Why are you opposed to me. Youre going to ruin everything. No, youre going to ruin everything. Thats what the 1790s are all about, different peoples nightmares about how the country is going to explode. Exactly. The failure of this dream, whatever it may be and different understanding of what the dream should be. The play does get at this very important emotional reality and leaves certainly left my students asking about it wanting to explore it. But im not sure how to explore the one youre talking about because frankly im puzzled by it and i want to keep thinking about it. We have oh, okay. Then were going to get the microphone over there. The play is wonderful and disturbing simultaneously. Thats come through really well. One of the things we focused on the most is really the political and cultural work that the play does in contemporary america. And that will vary a lot by the audiences that attend and see it. I saw it and i was, you know, surrounded by a very affluent, very white crowd. It will be really interesting to see how the play is different when the audience is new York City Public School kids. And i was really struck about how the play can change with the different context of seeing another musical recently the book of mormon. Which if i had a few more drinks i might argue is more historically accurate than hamilton. But really offensive in so many ways. But a central part of that musical is about orlando. And you know, we saw it like two days after the horrible events. And when orlando is celebrated as this place, it just gave me chills. I mean i sensed in the audience and i sensed in the cast that the play had you know, it wasnt completely transformed but it meant Something Different from its meaning two weeks ago. Okay. But thats really all about and i think that makes it really interesting and it makes drama particularly volatile genera because its not fixed. The performance matters. Its femoral but effecting. But my question is, you know, where does history fit into that. What we see is often historical uses of the past so often in American Culture. One of the things that we need to do is rehis torize, hold all kinds of cultural makers responsible. The question really is i, you know, ive been really interested in everything thats been said today and yesterday. But you know, can we get a little more precise maybe about how history should intervene, can we do it better, you know, than miranda has done it . You know, we celebrate his historical genius. Can we be more precise where historians with intervene which the cultural work being done that we may approve of is more historically accurate and grounded and can we infuse the stories that are doing good with a little bit more say integrity . Were not going to have 100 control over that because some artists are going to check with us before they go out into the world im starting a kick starter campaign. Everyone put in 1,000 bucks and were going to get our own musical. Go ahead. I have a question. Im not a historian but my question is about the dominican nature of the play. Hes done two place, in the heights and now hamilton. Hes puerto recan. Its my understanding hes dominican. I may be wrong. Sooif seen the play but im a little old for the hip hop style so i didnt quite get it. But i was wondering about the particular caribbean nature of this work, this it may have a lot less to do with the history of Alexander Hamilton and the history of the American Revolution and more to do with how people of color from the caribbean fit into the United States. Because i mean black americans are simply like myself, willing to be black americans. But caribbean people have a different identity in the caribbean, in fact become black when they come to the United States in most instances. This came up yesterday. I think miranda has said that the play is more autobiographic call than historical. This is that issue that im trying to raise again. Where are we drawing the line between fiction, nonfiction. How do we why is it we cant embrace the fact that fiction is fiction and that it tells a good story. Its powerful. People respond to it differently. But i think this is more about what andrew is talking about. Theres a political agenda about marketing and publicity that wants to give it the label of history because thats part of the appeal. And when people go to see it, theyre expecting to get history. The hbo, you remember, someone changed the week paid ya entry because they watched the john adams on hbo and they knew the truth. I know its nice to be optimistic and think its going to take us down the road to greater historical knowledge and inquiry, but thats not inevitable. And the power of politics of hollywood are not about embracing history. Im from the New York Historical society and one thing that came up in last nights panel, we concluded that miranda wouldnt really have the opportunity to revise his work, but one way we can look at his revisions is what he left out from the Public Theater production and the broadway production as ben mentioned, the whiskey rebellion. Correct me if im wrong but my recollection is the song one last time was one last ride, yeah. Was song as hamilton and washington are putting on their uniforms for one last time to put down a rebellion been fellow americans. And i think thats what gets left out. At the talkback because when i saw it on broadway for the first time, i had seen it twice before at the public. I had seen it as one last ride twice. And it was within of the things that miranda discussed saying that one of the problems was he was losing the audiences Attention Span during that song. That they werent kind of following along with him. I dont want to mischaracterize what he said. That was my recollection. And it is sort of too bad because it did show another dimension to washington and hamilton like oh, wait, thats why theyre you know, thats how they now think about the revolutionary tradition, like now that theyre on the other side. So it is kind of too bad. The name of the song was different. It was one last ride in the Public Theater and then became one last time and became more about the farewell address. Isnt that an example of how the play privileges emotions and relationships over political issues. So a completely federalist version of the whiskey rebellion, as a way of sighing it theyre the ones in the spirit of the revolution. Cant imagine that anyone would ever think that. Thats the case again and again. Its the federalists point of view. And i mean i dont think that after what brian said last night, i wonder if maybe we need to go back. Because annette made the point that the play is bringing back this interpretation weve been trying to kill. I think some of us have not been trying to kill it. I think some of us have given it a second life through this production. And so its got all of those atributs that some of us criticize 15 or 20 years ago. For those of you too young to remember and think when i say founder chic im using two words, ive got four things about founder chic. Ill do it as quickly as possible. Youre not going to rap it. Im not going to rap it. Its a lot of the same thing youve been talking about but they reinforce each other particularly well in the production. Its celebratory of the founder. Number two, its neofederalists, celebratory particular founders. Annette made this very clear last night. Neofederalists interpretation of virtually every aspect of the 1709s. And the privileging of character and personality over political issues and content is tied to the focus on questions of leadership and the looking at things from the founder perspective. All those three things, sell a celebratory, character, federalist. And the idea that the good founders were antislavery and they would have done more. So its brought up in the very first scene that laurens and hamilton imagine themselves as antifreedom fighters and they get to be the black soldiers as opposed to the other ones. Lauren is the pivot character. Theres Something Real going on of course. And then at the end, as weve heard, anjelica saying he could have done more. And that idea that i mean all of this is straight out of joelle lis, franklins antislavery is the crown jewel, the jewel in the crown of the Founding Fathers as he said in founding brothers, that the idea that hamilton versus jefferson encapsulates the entire political history of the early republic and the real dra that was what went on between them, not all of the other things about politics that most of the rest of us have been writing about and emphasizing. So you know, like ben and i have been going back and forth about this for months and months. And bens response is brilliant. But to me the key moment, when you say i dont really care about the founders, you gay it away. You dont really care. Some of us still do. Right . Ben cares about Everything Else about history but i didnt know this. I didnt know you didnt care that much. I still care. Im the only person at the table who doesnt have the name of a founder or the word founders in a book thats been published. Thats true. I would like to say one other thing, actually two things. One is this. Jo joe ellis . Please. Were not going to take him seriously . I havent taken him seriously for years. David david, please. I didnt say i took miranda serious. You did. No, i did not. But i certainly do not take joe ellis seriously as a historian. I had to read the quartet and it caused me great pain and i had to say it in various ways in the the New York Times book review but i said it. Its a bad book precisely because it does what it shouldnt do. It reduces everything to the foreground founding guys and thats wrong. Its misleading. Its bad history. I am not prepared to say that we should avoids the founders culdesac. That phrase is going to haunt me for the rest of my career. Sorry. No no. I also dont think that we should be plastering Campaign Buttons or bumper stickers on our books. Im not for the founding guy, im not against them. I find them interesting. I see them in context. Good scholarship of the sort that we want to encourage. When i teach about this stuff i mention hamilton but i warn them this is a play, it is not history. It may eliminate certain things, one last time as its been recast does illuminate the moment when washington says ive got to give up power for good reasons and those ideas are there in the songs. But at the same time, i tell them, reach beyond this play. And they do. Students will do that. And this includes middle School Students for gods sake. So i dont think think that worrying about neofederalism coming back in scholarship is really smog we need to worry about. Most of us are going to try to tell the truth in our book reviews about the people who try to force such substitutes for historical understanding on our readers. Can i briefly respond . Nobody did it in response to cher now and instead youve got gordon and joe basically reviewing and blurting each others books and nobody writes a review saying that nobody can get in the press saying this is neofederalists propaganda and you know, whether this is a very particular view. And the we all know better and this is all just out there as weve talked about this before. I guess we disagree about i see a long term push and i dont think that some of the folks are realizing how much its based on cher nou and just what a wall street view of hamilton and the founding that is. I dont think im saying anything i mean im just repeating we got a version from annette, from another angle from john last night. I think its fairly obvious. A lot of us dont really care about the issues of the 1790s that much. Or a lot of us have different views of the 1790 as and let a thousand flowers bloom. Theres a power dynamic. Pow hollywood. Lets put this in perspective. I mean, the narrative out there is not us, you know . Lets not fool ourselves. So, you know, its not just flowers bloom. In fact, some flowers have more power. Thats the way America Works and its not an equal playing field. When something becomes so powerful, so popular, we have to engage with it and explain, you know, why its different and put the politics back into it. Its not just about the politics of character. Because they become a symbol and theyve been our icons, theyve been symbols, and thats historically true. Its not that this is new this terms of making hamilton into the new symbol. Hes the new flavor of the month. We had john adams before. Now weve moved on. And thats going to keep happening. We cant stop that, but we have to engage and we have to actually teach the lessons that are distinguished, what real historians do as opposed to Popular Culture. Our knowledge matters and we have to defend it. If i can jump on that, i want to make a distinction between hollywood and broadway, because while Linmanuel Miranda is extraordinarily powerful and popular may be made into a movie. It may be made into a movie, but making it into a movie is going to change it in a way that will have a profound effect on it. I dont know who remembers rent. So when rent was live, rent was a huge hit. When rent was transferred to film, it changed it. It would change from night to night, whether you had a tragedy that would reshape it. For example, those of you who saw the tonys may remember they took the guns out of the performance, the hamilton performance in the tonys because they didnt want to put that on stage, so theres a profound change in the way its being staged thats contingent on a particular historical moment, so i think the broadway liveness of it is actually having a real impact on the way that people are reinscribing these visions of the Founding Fathers because they can actually see them two or three feet away and illegally film them on their cell phones and take it and do it over and over again and rehearse that. They can start embodying it. One of the things im going to be interested to see is at what point the emotions that are being conjured by this play become unintelable to us. Have you read those and thought people in the 19th century were idiots . Who would have seen this stuff . Its crap. So at some point the emotions being invoked, the ways the plays are evoking become o page to us, we lose that lexicon, so i wonder if the same thing will happen with the way hamilton is working on its current audiences. I also will return to power, because the way its interpreted by the New York Times, the power brokers, people defining what it means, also have more power, and even the audience and how they experience it. Do they get, okay, go to your blog and get to explain what it meant to you, but i think were always in this world where the power brokers are going to tell us what it means, why its significant, and how its read. We have to contend with that, as well. Yes, we might be a voice that can counter that, but i do think, as i said, the play kind of removes us from a certain power die namic, but also in how we interpret these media productions, because we are not the most powerful critics. And that needs to be understood, i think, as part of the debate, as well. I actually just had a quick comment, and i mentioned this to joanne, we spend all of this time focusing on Alexander Hamilton, and the title of the play is hamilton, and what nobody has really mentioned and didnt mention it last night and nobody here really mentioned it either, is the play doesnt end with Alexander Hamilton. The play ends, and i guess because the book, i didnt finish it, the book ends with a list of elizas accomplishments and things she did. I wonder personally, why dont we ever bring that up, why dont we bring up the fact a lot has the fact we dont have a lot of i get that, but why dont we kind of Pay Attention to the fact this play is about more than one hamilton . Its about also what she does at the end of it. I have not had the privilege to see the show. I know people who have said at the end when shes looking and sees alexander for the last time gasps, not sure if shes seeing hamilton or seeing the audience and realizing his story has been told now. I guess im kind of wondering your thoughts on that. Chernau really wants to turn Elizabeth Skylar into nancy reagan. The Hamilton Family are part of the production of creating the memory of hamilton. Very effective, we know. Some founders have people that preserve their papers and recreate their identity. The hamiltons were quite skilled at that, and Elizabeth Skylar hamilton was in the forefront of playing that role, which is a traditional role of women protecting the reputations of their dead husbands, dead soldiers, the dead family honor, the dead family legacy. And i completely agree, and i would just add to that is its partly because the way i read it is, its still really about him. I mean, they want him you know, i think miranda sort of wants to make it about her, but its still really about him and how his memory will be preserved, how he could have done so much more, and its a beautiful, poignant song about when she sees the orphans shes helping it reminds, you know, she sees their eyes, its a beautiful song, but its still her singing about him and his i mean, to me, thats how it functions in the musical. I fear that were weve run out of time. I want to thank everybody on the panel. I want to thank the audience. And i hope weve cast light rather than shedding heat. Especially today. American history tv airs on cspan3 every weekend, telling the american story through events, interviews, and visiting historic locations. Our features include lectures in history, visits to College Classrooms across the country to hear lectures by top history professors. 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