[Racism and Minstrelsy in Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon (1859)

Seminar session "Affect and Emotion in Melodrama" The session is about Irish-American playwright Dion Boucicault's 1859 play The Octoroon, which was one of the most successful melodrama's (in the US and the UK) of the 19th century. We will speak about how minstrelsy (the practice of white actors dressing up as black characters) was used to ridicule and promote stereotypes about black people while the plot of the star-crossed lovers (a white man and a mixed-race woman) can also be seen as a critique of slavery and the anti-miscegenation laws in America.

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