The College of Liberal Arts, University Forum Lecture Series presents “Ethio Minstrels and Chinese Fools: The Performance of Race in Japanese Popular Culture,” a talk by Richard Miller, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, UNLV

In the mid-nineteenth century, blackface minstrelsy became one of the first truly global forms of popular culture, traveling in a few short years from its home in the ante-bellum United States to every corner of the world, shaping media and culture even today. To understand the initial acceptance of blackface as well as its enduring effects, this talk examines the case of Japan, exploring the performance of Otherness before and after Commodore Perry brought the Ethio Minstrels to the world in 1853.