Guest Lecture: Nigel Hatton, "The Trouble with Ceremony: Frederick Douglass on America’s 250th Year of Independence"

Prof. Dr. Nigel Hatton is Associate Professor of Literature and Philosophy at the University of California, Merced.

Tuesday, 07 July 2026, 10:15-11:45, ZHSG, Room 1.010

The summer of 2026 in the United States will feature the World Cup, the commemora tion of the 250th year of the Declaration of Independence, and the Grand Opening of the $850 million Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago. These 21st cen tury cultural “celebrations” and historical markers present an opportunity to examine the ways in which ceremonious state language, discourses of optimism, and curated narra tives of progress and prosperity continue to project conflicting notions of America, one beautiful, exceptional, imagined with tenets of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and available to an elite few, the other dependent on histories and legacies of violence against indigenous populations, African Americans, and immigrants from the Global South. Turning back to Frederick Douglass’ 1852 oration, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” this presentation traces the trouble with ceremony, nation state play, and commemoration when done without appropriate reflection, action, truth, and mem ory. As Douglass points out, only a limited segment of society can “properly celebrate” these moments; for others “celebration is a sham.” Thinking alongside Douglass, we can complicate celebration, locate when its ceremoniousness becomes violent and si lencing, and identify alternatives to empire, inequity, and exploitation disguised as grand openings, tournaments, memorials, and commemorations.