scholarly journals From Gospel to Gates: Modal Blending in African-American Musical Discourse before the Signifyin(g) Monkey

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Coady
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Musical Discourse ◽  
Musical Practices

Despite its origins in the literary realm, Henry Louis Gates The Signfiyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of African-American literary criticism has become a standard methodological text for the study of African-American music. Those who embrace the theory accept as the foundation of their argument an apparent link between African-American linguistic and musical realms. This short paper locates the origin of this type of modal blending in research into the rhetorical practices of Gospel services in the United States during the early 1970s. It posits that this body of work established a consensus in the field of Cultural Studies over the affinity of linguistic/musical practices in African-American culture and demonstrates that this understanding was used to justify the application of Gates theory to musical analysis in the 1990s. The ubiquity of Gates theory in the study of African-American music today is therefore shown to be the result of interdisciplinary collaboration rather than the legacy of any one particular individual.

I Come for to Sing

2018 ◽  
pp. 96-114
Author(s):  
Kevin D. Greene
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Vernacular Music ◽  
Folk Music Revival ◽  
The Way

From 1930 to 1970, a second folk music revival took hold in the United States and Europe, determined to capture and preserve for posterity US and European vernacular music. Critical to this collection of folklorists, academics, political activists, and entrepreneurs was the history and impact of African American music on folklore and culture. Big Bill, quite familiar with the types of country and Delta blues the folk music revival craved stood happy to oblige. Soon, one of the most sophisticated and urbane performers of the age began performing alone accompanied by his guitar for folk audiences from New York to Chicago. Within this community, Broonzy found a culture and environment willing and able to support his transitioning career from black pop star to folk music darling. Along the way, he would meet more individuals who could aid in his career reinvention and he both accepted and rejected their expectations of him and his music.

Representations of Identity in Jewish Jazz Autobiography

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-121
Author(s):  
Reva Marin
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
American Music ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
City Life ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Socioeconomic Diversity ◽  
Jazz Music ◽  
Jewish Americans ◽  
Racial Ethnic

This chapter examines the autobiographies of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Mezz Mezzrow, and Max Kaminsky, focusing on their multifaceted identities as second-generation Jewish Americans whose lives and careers brought them into close contact with African American music and society. While these autobiographers recount childhoods in which their identities as ethnic Jews leave them at a distance—both geographically and psychologically—from Protestant white America, their identities prove to be far from fixed; over time their focus on themselves as ethnic outsiders is complimented—or even replaced—by a more general self-identification as “white” and a longing to be Black, or at least to experience immersion in African American culture. This process is facilitated by their experiences of city life and their attraction to jazz music and nightlife—all of which exposes them to the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of American life.

scholarly journals White Oppression and Black Resistance in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
MHD Noor Al-Abbood
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Music ◽  
The Novel ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Dick And Jane ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Beauty Myth

Many critical interpretations of Morrison’s The Bluest Eye are driven by the belief that the novel pessimistically depicts an African American community so helplessly captivated by an insidious white aesthetic ideology that it is incapable of resistance, self-regeneration, or change. Pointing out the flawed premises of these readings, this article argues that the novel presents rather an effective example of resistance to the dominant white ideology thematically and formally. Morrison’s deconstructive rewriting of the “Dick and Jane” primer effectively subverts the terms of the white oppressive discourse and demolishes its ideological foundations, thus paving the way for African American self-affirmation. This is reflected in Claudia’s increasing awareness of, and mounting rebellion against, the destructive white aesthetic. Her rejection of the white beauty myth, demonstrated by her confused early childhood’s destruction of white baby dolls, culminates in a more sophisticated perception of the operation of this myth and in a radical retrieval and re-affirmation of the black beauty and worth which the white beauty myth denies in order to legitimate itself and establish its hegemony. The article argues that the radical resistance to the dehumanizing white ideology Claudia develops is, like Morrison’s formal deconstructive project, quite indebted to African American music and, more crucially, to the rich heritage behind it. The article concludes by emphasizing that in the world depicted in The Bluest Eye possibilities of resistance and chances of survival are vitally dependent on the strength of one’s connection to African American culture and heritage, as the story of Claudia’s survival proves.

scholarly journals Stanley Péan et l’interculturalité en diaspora

Il Tolomeo ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana Fianco
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
American Music ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
Young Writer

In spite of being viewed as a young writer until the ’90s, Stanley Péan is now known as one of the most distinctive and established voices in the Haitian-Canadian literary scene. The pivotal moment in his career happened in 1996, when Zombi Blues was published. This novel displays a cultural space in which Haitian traditions and Canadian modernity converge and allow intercultural exchange to take place. Drawing from this perspective, the following article aims to analyse how Péan creates a fictional universe through the blending of cultural elements. Using the collection of myths and beliefs that permeate the Haitian and African cultural panorama as a reference point, we will investigate the ways in which Péan adapted and transposed these traditions to the Haitian diasporic context. Particular attention will be given to the use of jazz and African American music, as well as to the reinterpretation of mythological creatures such as the zombie and the marasa twins. Hence, the article tries to show how Péan’s cultural crossroad contributes to the foundation of a new literary interpretation of Haitianity.

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