Traditional carnival theory, based mainly on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Victor Turner, has long defined carnival as inversive or subversive. The essays in this groundbreaking anthology collectively reverse that trend, offering a re-definition of 'carnival' that focuses not on the hierarchy it temporarily displaces or negates, but a one that is rooted in the actual festival event. details its new theory in terms of a carnival that is at once representative and distinctive: The Carnival of Trinidad - the most copied yet least studied major carnival in the world.