Entering a Theory of Black Musical Space

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
James Gordon Williams
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Musical Space ◽  
Musical Practices

This chapter introduces the theoretical framework of Black musical space for the five case studies on African American improvisers. This chapter defines what is meant by crossing bar lines relative to Black sociality represented in the musical practices.

Terence Blanchard and the Politics of Breathing

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
James Gordon Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
African American ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Staten Island ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Musical Space ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Systemic Violence

This chapter discusses trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s composition “Breathless” (2015). “Breathless” was Blanchard’s response to the 2014 killing of Eric Garner by members of the police on Staten Island and his musical connection to the Black Lives Matter social movement. Blanchard sonically represents breathlessness harmonically, rhythmically, and melodically within the values of Black musical space. It is argued that Blanchard’s orchestration of reverbed male and female sounds of exhalation with the spoken-word lyrics of JRei Oliver is a social critique of systemic violence. This chapter explains how Blanchard’s music is in conversation not only with the Black Lives Matter movement but with the archives and community repositories of improvised social justice music by past African American musicians who have historically created a Black sense of place through musical practices.

Crossing Bar Lines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gordon Williams ◽  
Robin D. G. Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
African American ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Musical Space ◽  
Eminent Scholar ◽  
Musical Practices

This book provides an interpretive framework for understanding how African American creative improvisers think of musical space. Featuring a Foreword by eminent scholar Robin D.G. Kelley, this is the first critical improvisation studies book that uses Black Geographies theory to examine the spatial values of musical expression in the improvisational and compositional practices of trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Ambrose Akinmusire, drummers Billy Higgins and Terri Lyne Carrington, and pianist Andrew Hill. Bar lines in this book serve as a notational and spatial metaphor for social constraints connected to systemic and structural white supremacy. Crossing them therefore applies not only to conceptions of Black spatiality in musical practices but also to how African American musicians address structural barriers to fight the social injustices that obstruct freedom and full citizenship for African Americans and other marginalized groups. Defined by both liminal and quotidian reality, Black musical space, like Black feminist thought, is about theorizing through the lived experiences of Black people which reflect different genders, sexual identities, political stances, across improvisational eras. Using this theory of Black musical space, the book explains how these dynamic musicians explicitly and implicitly articulate humanity through compositional and improvisational practices, some of which interface with contemporary social movements like Black Lives Matter. Consequently, Crossing Bar Lines not only fills a significant gap in the literature on African American, activist musical improvisation and contemporary social movements, but it gives the reader an understanding of the complexity of African American musical practices relative to fluid political identities and sensibilities.

Fixing Improvisation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthea Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Intellectual Property Law ◽  
Tap Dance ◽  
American Vernacular ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter juxtaposes brief case studies of African American vernacular dancers from the first half of the twentieth century in order to reexamine the relationship between the ideology of intellectual property law and the traditions of jazz and tap dance, which rely heavily on improvisation. The examples of the blackface performer Johnny Hudgins, who claimed a copyright in his pantomime routine in the 1920s, and of Fred and Sledge, the class-act dance duo featured in the hit 1948 musical Kiss Me, Kate, whose choreography was copyrighted by the white modern dancer Hanya Holm, prompt a rethinking of the assumed opposition between the originality and fixity requirements of copyright law and the improvisatory ethos of jazz and tap dance. Ultimately, the chapter argues that whether claiming or disavowing uniqueness, embracing or resisting documentation, African American vernacular dancers were both advantaged and hampered by copyright law.

The integrative potential of science and research cooperation for suturing the Baltic Sea region in the 21st century

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-32
Author(s):  
Kazimierz Musiał
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Research Cooperation ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Science And Research

The aim of the article is to demonstrate how science and researchcooperation may help to reintegrate the Baltic region in the 21st century withthe participation of Russia. This is done through the analysis of documentsand strategies of Baltic Sea regionalism in the context of the regional knowledgeregime. Attention is paid to different positionalities of the regional actorsand their narratives. The theoretical framework is secured by an analysis ofcritical junctures drawing on case studies from the years 1989-91 and 2014 andthe subsequent reconfiguration of the power / knowledge nexus. The analysisshows that this reconfiguration actively contributes to creating and changingthe content and context of the Baltic Sea regionalism as based on new symbolic,economic, and political capitals. The conclusion points to the potentialof Russia’s involvement in the co-creation of the regional knowledge regimeand defines the conditions and methods of possible cooperation.

scholarly journals Populations at Risk Across the Lifespan: Case Studies: What has Changed about Vaginal Douching among African American Mothers and Daughters?

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 418-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayley Mark ◽  
Susan G. Sherman ◽  
Joy Nanda ◽  
Tracey Chambers-Thomas ◽  
Mathilda Barnes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
African American ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
African American Mothers ◽  
Mothers And Daughters ◽  
Vaginal Douching ◽  
Populations At Risk

Deep History, Deep South

2018 ◽  
pp. 245-286
Author(s):  
Cameron B. Strang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Deep South ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
Plantation Slavery ◽  
Plantation Agriculture ◽  
Cotton Trade

During the 1830s, slavery shaped the practice, patronage, and application of geology in America. Plantation slavery—and the labor, patronage, and networks it provided—enabled collections and observations that defined the Gulf South’s geohistory while emerging geotheories inspired new means of justifying and furthering slavery. Slavery allowed Charles and Sarah Tait to offer patronage and recognition to northeastern naturalists, excavate and package the fossils needed to characterize the Gulf South’s geohistory, and circulate specimens and data through the networks built around the cotton trade. Rush Nutt drew on uniformitarian geotheory to legitimate African American slavery and proposed new geo-engineering techniques that would encourage the expansion of plantation agriculture. These case studies suggest some of the ways that slavery and science strengthened each other in the early United States.

Affective image operations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Eder
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Stimulate Action ◽  
Political Force ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
Web Videos ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
Affective Structure

Affective image operations are attempts to influence behaviour and stimulate action by evoking affects through images. The paper explores their forms and uses in political conflict, from video activism to war propaganda. Drawing together interdisciplinary research, the chapter develops a theoretical framework for analysing the affective and political force of still and moving images, arguing that the affective structure of images has four layers: Political affects and emotions are triggered by the specific interplay of visual forms, worlds, messages, and reflections. On the basis of this framework, several frequent types of affective image operations can be distinguished, illustrated by brief case studies of political web videos.

Theorizing Excess and the Abject

Making Icons ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Coates
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
National Identities ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

This chapter establishes a theoretical framework for chapter 7, which deals with characterizations and tropes that resist categorization. Using Art Historical theorizations of the abject, including the work of Hal Foster and Julia Kristeva, abject bodies and national identities are explored in the historical context of early post-war Japan. The impact of abject imagery on the spectator is hypothesized using Ella Shohat and Robert Stam’s account of the ‘schizophrenic spectator.’ Case studies include Teshigahara Hiroshi’s Woman of the Dunes (Suna no onna, 1964).

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