| The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the tour guide performances at two Mennonite historical sights as a type of cultural performance. The methodological frame for the study was based on the process of sight sacralization as defined by sociologist Dean MacCannell and further developed in performative terms by performance scholars Elizabeth Fine and Jean Haskell Speer. The five phases of sight sacralization are: naming, framing and elevation, enshrinement, mechanical reproduction, and social reproduction. A total of 28 tour guide performances at the 1719 Herr House in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and the 1770 Germantown Mennonite Meetinghouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were recorded and analyzed. Additional primary and secondary sources were provided by the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Library (Lancaster, PA), the Mennonite Historical Archives of Eastern Pennsylvania (Harleysville, PA), and the Mennonite Historical Library at Bluffton College (Bluffton, OH).; Chapter I, besides presenting the background and methodology for the study, established tour guide performances as culturally sensitive events worthy of performative analysis. Chapters II and IV described the process of sight sacralization at two sights that were purchased, preserved and opened by Mennonites for visitation by various publics. Chapters III and V described and analyzed the tour performances, wherein guides ritualistically negotiate with their audiences in an attempt to transform unimposing stone structures into valued cultural and religious sights. Chapter VI included a comparative performance analysis of the two sights and suggestions for further cultural performance research.; Tour guides at both sights function as cultural storytellers and strive to meet perceived audience expectations for an authentic touristic experience. This is achieved despite distinctive differences in the verbal act sequence at each sight. Indeed, the tours were found to function as reflective and/or reflexive cultural performances, depending on the level of communitas attained between performer and audience. These sight-specific cultural performances both reveal and perpetuate the Mennonite Great Traditions of the Centrality of Scripture, Service, Community, Simplicity, and Peace. |
