Spectacles of Power and the Power of Spectacles

Abstract

This chapter focuses on three historical cases of the development and deployment of spectacles from fundamentally different sources of social power. The first involves turning the creation and dissemination of printed materials, a practice largely limited to a small religious and academic class, into a battleground over the legitimacy of particular religious teachings and the political powers entwined with them. The second case involves how supposedly secularizing countries use spectacles with religious themes that have lives of their own. The third case involves a ruler who seized power and used spectacle to bolster both the legitimacy of her own reign and the standing of her country.