For today’s class, we’ll discuss the Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s essay “The Presence in the Past.” Trouillot’s work asks us to consider how historical narratives are constructed to meet the needs of the present. In “The Presence in the Past,” a visit to Chichén Itzá sparks reflections on the memorialization of difficult histories (through Disney’s almost-built plantation theme park), the role of guilt in historical remembrance, and the question of why the way we talk about history matters for the present.
As you read, please consider the following:
- How have our tour guides made the histories of the ancient Maya elite their own? What animates their desire to do so? What realities of Mayan civilization do they need to ignore to make Mayan monumental architecture part of their individual ancestral stories?
- How is Chichén Itzá like an amusement park? How is it different?
- Hacienda Sotuta de Peon was once a working plantation. How does it memorialize itself as a site of labor? How does it resist that history to present itself as a tourist destination?
- Speaking of ancestral stories…why do we need stories of our ancestors? What purpose do they serve, and how do we perpetuate them (through person-to-person storytelling, music, film, social media, etc.).
- Are Disney and the M.C.U. trying to colonize all of global history? How?
- What do you think about Trouillot’s observations on guilt and historical memory? What does he offer up as an alternative to guilt?
- Where did our guide at Chichén Itzá say the three surviving Mayan codices are? What does this tell us about the difficulty of memorializing the Maya past in the Yucatán?
- Consider the question about local peddlers (and, indeed, tour guides) at Chichén Itzá that the Zapatistas brought up in 2006. How do these historical actors seek to make the site their own?
