Memorialisation of specific individuals necessitates processes of remembering and forgetting, memory work, and obfuscation. The African American Paul Robeson is considered an "honorary Welshman" and a "Welsh achiever." How could Robeson, erased from the history books in his own country, be appropriated by popular vote as a Welsh national hero? This paper questions how Robeson's philosophies, evident in his arts and actions, were memorialised into those of a Welsh hero through the theoretical lens of absent presence and geographies of biography. I explore this relationship between Wales and Robeson further to understand his influence and commemorative presence in Wales via the material memorial landscape of Robeson and how he is represented within broader Welsh memorialisation and nationalism. Through the discourse of the memorial landscapes of Wales, elements of his philosophy may be over-or under-represented.For example, he connected with the strong socialist history in Wales, but the complexity of Robeson's philosophical framework remains absent. Why were only some of his philosophical beliefs transmitted into Welsh society and the memorial landscape? This paper reveals both the presence and absence of Paul Robeson's complex biography in the material memorial landscape in Wales. As a case study on the inclusion of (auto)biographical knowledge in the context of complex geographies and landscapes, this work frames biographical inclusion and exclusion as vital geographic concerns, particularly in the precarious Black geographies of Paul Robeson in Wales. In so doing, it further reifies the indelible connections between geography, biography, and the socio-political contexts from which memorial landscapes emerge.
Paul Robeson is one of the greatest yet most unknown figures of the 20th century. This article goes beyond the traditional bibliographic style of documenting this great life, toward constructing a usable philosophical framework from it. Utilizing Robeson's own works, and building on the small critical literature already in existence, I present his philosophical framework -comprised of anticolonialism, socialism, and human rights. I present these dense, interconnected, and ever-expansive philosophical stances into a form of communication that can be easily understood, evaluated, taught, and compared. Understanding the philosophies, actions, and examples of his ideological framework will provide the appropriate contextual background for understanding (to play off the title of Robeson's 1958 book, Here I Stand) where Paul Robeson philosophically stood.
Since his first interactions with Welsh miners striking in London in 1929, Paul Robeson has been considered by some as an “honorary Welshman.” While the African American actor, athlete, activist, singer, and scholar never lived in Wales, he did have various interactions in Wales throughout his life. This special relationship persists on the memorial landscape of the country in various ways, but none as extensive as the Let Paul Robeson Sing! exhibition. This article extends beyond an overview of the exhibition to identify it as an example of exceptional memorialization techniques. Combining the concepts of participatory, temporary, and mobile memorialization, in order to commemorate Paul Robeson through a sensorial, spatially, and conceptually diverse program, Let Robeson Sing! exhibits memory through a unique and engaging memorial landscape. This article situates the exhibition within the techniques of participatory, temporary, and mobile memorialization, and how the combination of the three provides a unique, effective, and affective form of commemorating Paul Robeson in Wales.
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