Carnival - History and Anthropology

In 1975 the SSRC asked Alan Macfarlane to organize a series of interdisciplinary seminars on history and anthropology. The first and fourth were filmed and edited by Martin Gienke and the Audio Visual Aids Unit in Cambridge with the assistance of Sarah Harrison.The original tapes were rescued by the British Film Institute and transferred to DVCAM. The first seminar in March 1976 was on the interpretation of public rituals (Carnival). Only two hours out of the four hours of the film have been recovered. The rest had deteriorated beyond rescue, a timely reminder of the fragility of the medium.The fourth seminar in March 1977 was on models of social change, which is a separate playlist