The Future Perfect, Autopsy, and Enfreakment on the 19th-Century Stage

Abstract

The public autopsies of 19th-century enfreaked performers remains a central issue in studies of 19th-century enslavement. While previously black performance studies focused on the instability of the historical past tense, the study of freak shows and enslavement dictates a reckoning with the future perfect tense, which sheds light on the history of the future by asking “what will have been” rather than “what was” or “what could have been.”