Violet Harrington Bryan
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496836205
- eISBN:
- 9781496836250
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496836205.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Velma Pollard and Erna Brodber, two sister-writers born and raised in Jamaica, recreate imagined and lived homelands in their literature by commemorating the history, culture, and religion of the ...
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Velma Pollard and Erna Brodber, two sister-writers born and raised in Jamaica, recreate imagined and lived homelands in their literature by commemorating the history, culture, and religion of the Caribbean. Velma Pollard was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica; by the time Velma Pollard was three, her parents had moved to Woodside, St. Mary, in northeast Jamaica, where her sister, Erna Brodber was born. They write about their homeland in a series of memories and stories of that lived and imagined experience in their many works: fictional, nonfictional, and poetic. They center on their home village, but occasionally move the settings of their writings to other regions of Jamaica and various Caribbean islands, as well as to other parts of the African diaspora in the United States, Canada, and England. The role of women in the patriarchal society of Jamaica and much of the Caribbean is also a subject of the sisters’ writing. Growing up in what Erna Brodber calls the kumbla, the protective but restrictive environment of many women in the Anglo-Caribbean, is also an important theme in their works. In her fiction, Velma Pollard discusses the gender gaps in employment and the demands of marriage and the special contributions of women to family and community. This study examines Erna Brodber’s work on a par with her sister Velma Pollard’s writing and is the first to do so, drawing upon original interviews.Less
Velma Pollard and Erna Brodber, two sister-writers born and raised in Jamaica, recreate imagined and lived homelands in their literature by commemorating the history, culture, and religion of the Caribbean. Velma Pollard was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica; by the time Velma Pollard was three, her parents had moved to Woodside, St. Mary, in northeast Jamaica, where her sister, Erna Brodber was born. They write about their homeland in a series of memories and stories of that lived and imagined experience in their many works: fictional, nonfictional, and poetic. They center on their home village, but occasionally move the settings of their writings to other regions of Jamaica and various Caribbean islands, as well as to other parts of the African diaspora in the United States, Canada, and England. The role of women in the patriarchal society of Jamaica and much of the Caribbean is also a subject of the sisters’ writing. Growing up in what Erna Brodber calls the kumbla, the protective but restrictive environment of many women in the Anglo-Caribbean, is also an important theme in their works. In her fiction, Velma Pollard discusses the gender gaps in employment and the demands of marriage and the special contributions of women to family and community. This study examines Erna Brodber’s work on a par with her sister Velma Pollard’s writing and is the first to do so, drawing upon original interviews.
Brian McFarlane
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496835352
- eISBN:
- 9781496835314
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496835352.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Fred Schepisi is a crucial name associated with the ‘revival’ of the Australian film industry in the 1970s. This book traces the lead-up to Schepisi’s critical successes in feature-filmmaking via his ...
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Fred Schepisi is a crucial name associated with the ‘revival’ of the Australian film industry in the 1970s. This book traces the lead-up to Schepisi’s critical successes in feature-filmmaking via his earlier award-winning success as a producer in advertising commercials in the 1960s and the setting up of his own company. A minor biographical element considers Schepisi’s early education in a Catholic seminary, which he drew on in his semi-autobiographical film, The Devil’s Playground, the success of which launched him as an exciting new feature director.
The book then charts Schepisi’s development as a director in demand in other countries, notably in the US and the UK, as well as continuing to make major films in Australia. His career is in this way symptomatic of Australian directors who have made their presence felt on the international stage.
What follows here is a critical account of Schepisi’s film output and the context in which it has taken place, with the co-operation of Schepisi and some of his key collaborators. The book details production histories, an account of the finished films, and a sense of how the films were received (both critically and popularly). Author Brian McFarlane explores the recurring thematic, narrative, and visual elements that have helped to characterize Schepisi as artist and craftsman.Less
Fred Schepisi is a crucial name associated with the ‘revival’ of the Australian film industry in the 1970s. This book traces the lead-up to Schepisi’s critical successes in feature-filmmaking via his earlier award-winning success as a producer in advertising commercials in the 1960s and the setting up of his own company. A minor biographical element considers Schepisi’s early education in a Catholic seminary, which he drew on in his semi-autobiographical film, The Devil’s Playground, the success of which launched him as an exciting new feature director.
The book then charts Schepisi’s development as a director in demand in other countries, notably in the US and the UK, as well as continuing to make major films in Australia. His career is in this way symptomatic of Australian directors who have made their presence felt on the international stage.
What follows here is a critical account of Schepisi’s film output and the context in which it has taken place, with the co-operation of Schepisi and some of his key collaborators. The book details production histories, an account of the finished films, and a sense of how the films were received (both critically and popularly). Author Brian McFarlane explores the recurring thematic, narrative, and visual elements that have helped to characterize Schepisi as artist and craftsman.
Stan BH Tan-Tangbau and Văn Minh Quyên
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496836335
- eISBN:
- 9781496836328
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496836335.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Is there jazz in socialist Vietnam? The answer is “yes,” even though jazz was once perceived as “music of the enemy.” Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam tells the story ...
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Is there jazz in socialist Vietnam? The answer is “yes,” even though jazz was once perceived as “music of the enemy.” Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam tells the story of saxophonist, Quyền Văn Minh, who helped to give jazz a place in socialist Vietnam. This is an intimate account of a life in jazz under socialism in Vietnam, set in the broader contexts of radical social revolution, war, and uncertainty of political change when peace returned.
After accidentally encountering jazz on the transistor radio as a child, Minh embarked on a life-long quest to learn and play the music. From a self-taught musician who played at wedding gigs, he rose to become a respectable professional musician in successive song and dance troupes. Minh’s desire to play jazz motivated him to present the genre in socialist Vietnam’s public sphere, which inadvertently led to a teaching career at the national conservatoire. In 1994, he premiered three original jazz compositions in the first jazz concert performed by Vietnamese musicians at the Hà Nội Opera House. Releasing his debut jazz album, Birth ’99, Minh helped to give shape to the nascent genre of “Vietnamese jazz.” Eventually, he founded Minh’s Jazz Club to create a space for musicians to play jazz and Vietnamese audience to learn about jazz.
Written in a creative melange of autoethnography, analytical interventions, and broad contextualizations that faithfully projects the voice of the protagonist, readers could see how the complex political and social contexts of socialist Vietnam are actually experienced by real people. Through the story of Minh, we show how jazz in socialist Vietnam, as we believe in many other Asian countries and formerly socialist Eastern European countries, is mediated by passion, tenacity, and innovation of devoted musicians who saw in jazz the power of artistic self-expression. Less
Is there jazz in socialist Vietnam? The answer is “yes,” even though jazz was once perceived as “music of the enemy.” Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam tells the story of saxophonist, Quyền Văn Minh, who helped to give jazz a place in socialist Vietnam. This is an intimate account of a life in jazz under socialism in Vietnam, set in the broader contexts of radical social revolution, war, and uncertainty of political change when peace returned.
After accidentally encountering jazz on the transistor radio as a child, Minh embarked on a life-long quest to learn and play the music. From a self-taught musician who played at wedding gigs, he rose to become a respectable professional musician in successive song and dance troupes. Minh’s desire to play jazz motivated him to present the genre in socialist Vietnam’s public sphere, which inadvertently led to a teaching career at the national conservatoire. In 1994, he premiered three original jazz compositions in the first jazz concert performed by Vietnamese musicians at the Hà Nội Opera House. Releasing his debut jazz album, Birth ’99, Minh helped to give shape to the nascent genre of “Vietnamese jazz.” Eventually, he founded Minh’s Jazz Club to create a space for musicians to play jazz and Vietnamese audience to learn about jazz.
Written in a creative melange of autoethnography, analytical interventions, and broad contextualizations that faithfully projects the voice of the protagonist, readers could see how the complex political and social contexts of socialist Vietnam are actually experienced by real people. Through the story of Minh, we show how jazz in socialist Vietnam, as we believe in many other Asian countries and formerly socialist Eastern European countries, is mediated by passion, tenacity, and innovation of devoted musicians who saw in jazz the power of artistic self-expression.
Alicia K. Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496835147
- eISBN:
- 9781496835178
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496835147.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
As with countless other black leaders whose life stories have disappeared from the historical record, much of Isaac H. Anderson’s unique story has been shrouded in silence. His story is a ...
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As with countless other black leaders whose life stories have disappeared from the historical record, much of Isaac H. Anderson’s unique story has been shrouded in silence. His story is a microhistory of black religious and political experience after Emancipation, and a recovery of the life of a minister, politician, and former slave. His narrative begins with his white father and master, William Jackson Anderson, and with the system of slavery that provided the economic fuel by which William Jackson built his wealth and became a merchant prince of Fort Valley in Houston County. It progresses to Anderson winning and serving in his white father’s seat in Georgia’s legislature during Reconstruction even though he and William Jackson represented opposite political parties and perspectives. During his time in Georgia, Anderson actively opposed the rise of the apprenticeship system, targeting Black children, and the convict leasing system, which re-enslaved many Black men. His story gives understanding into the formation of the Black Church as the only space in which enslaved and free blacks could survive, and even contend with, the oppression of whites. Leaders like Anderson fostered spiritual and physical safe spaces for parishioners, and his story provides a fuller accounting of a history that has often been dismissively recast and retold by those who mistake subtle but sustained defiance as subservient survival, and thereby miss many of the nuances of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church’s beginnings. Anderson’s unique story also exposes the intra-racial tension that existed in and around the small denomination, and the strategies adopted by black leaders in dealing with a society that was often antithetical to them.Less
As with countless other black leaders whose life stories have disappeared from the historical record, much of Isaac H. Anderson’s unique story has been shrouded in silence. His story is a microhistory of black religious and political experience after Emancipation, and a recovery of the life of a minister, politician, and former slave. His narrative begins with his white father and master, William Jackson Anderson, and with the system of slavery that provided the economic fuel by which William Jackson built his wealth and became a merchant prince of Fort Valley in Houston County. It progresses to Anderson winning and serving in his white father’s seat in Georgia’s legislature during Reconstruction even though he and William Jackson represented opposite political parties and perspectives. During his time in Georgia, Anderson actively opposed the rise of the apprenticeship system, targeting Black children, and the convict leasing system, which re-enslaved many Black men. His story gives understanding into the formation of the Black Church as the only space in which enslaved and free blacks could survive, and even contend with, the oppression of whites. Leaders like Anderson fostered spiritual and physical safe spaces for parishioners, and his story provides a fuller accounting of a history that has often been dismissively recast and retold by those who mistake subtle but sustained defiance as subservient survival, and thereby miss many of the nuances of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church’s beginnings. Anderson’s unique story also exposes the intra-racial tension that existed in and around the small denomination, and the strategies adopted by black leaders in dealing with a society that was often antithetical to them.
Jared N. Champion and Peter C. Kunze (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496835482
- eISBN:
- 9781496835536
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496835482.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory ...
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Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory took time away from the stage to speak alongside Martin Luther King Jr. , and—more recently—Tig Notaro challenged popular notions of damaged or abject bodies. Stand-up comedians deploy humor to open up difficult topics for broader examination, which only underscores the social and cultural importance of their work.
Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals draws together essays that contribute to the analysis of the stand-up comedian as public intellectual since the 1980s. The chapters explore stand-up comedians as contributors to and shapers of public discourse via their live performances, podcasts, social media presence, and political activism.
Each chapter highlights a stand-up comedian and their ongoing discussion of a cultural issue or expression of a political ideology/standpoint: Lisa Lampanelli’s use of problematic postracial humor, Aziz Ansari’s merging of sociology and technology, or Maria Bamford’s emphasis on mental health, to name just a few. Taking a Stand offers a starting point for understanding the work stand-up comedians do as well as its reach beyond the stage. Comedians influence discourse, perspectives, even public policy on myriad issues, and this book sets out to take those jokes seriously.Less
Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory took time away from the stage to speak alongside Martin Luther King Jr. , and—more recently—Tig Notaro challenged popular notions of damaged or abject bodies. Stand-up comedians deploy humor to open up difficult topics for broader examination, which only underscores the social and cultural importance of their work.
Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals draws together essays that contribute to the analysis of the stand-up comedian as public intellectual since the 1980s. The chapters explore stand-up comedians as contributors to and shapers of public discourse via their live performances, podcasts, social media presence, and political activism.
Each chapter highlights a stand-up comedian and their ongoing discussion of a cultural issue or expression of a political ideology/standpoint: Lisa Lampanelli’s use of problematic postracial humor, Aziz Ansari’s merging of sociology and technology, or Maria Bamford’s emphasis on mental health, to name just a few. Taking a Stand offers a starting point for understanding the work stand-up comedians do as well as its reach beyond the stage. Comedians influence discourse, perspectives, even public policy on myriad issues, and this book sets out to take those jokes seriously.
Terence McSweeney
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496836083
- eISBN:
- 9781496836137
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496836083.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Black Panther is one of the most financially successful and culturally impactful films to emerge from the American film industry in recent years. When it was released in 2018 it broke numerous ...
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Black Panther is one of the most financially successful and culturally impactful films to emerge from the American film industry in recent years. When it was released in 2018 it broke numerous records and resonated with audiences all around the world in ways which transcended the dimensions of the superhero film. In Black Panther: Interrogating a Cultural Phenomenon author Terence McSweeney explores the film from a diverse range of perspectives, seeing it not only as a comic book adaptation and a superhero film, but also a dynamic contribution to the discourse of both African and African American studies.
Black Panther: Interrogating a Cultural Phenomenon argues that Black Panther is one of the defining American films of the last decade and the most remarkable title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2008-). The MCU has become the largest film franchise in the history of the medium and has even shaped the contours of the contemporary blockbuster, but the narratives within it have almost exclusively perpetuated largely unambiguous fantasies of American heroism and exceptionalism. In contrast, Black Panther complicates this by engaging in an entirely different mythos in its portrayal of an African nation—never colonized by Europe—as the most powerful and technologically advanced in the world. McSweeney charts how and why Black Panther became a cultural phenomenon and also a battleground on which a war of meaning was waged at a very particular time in American history.Less
Black Panther is one of the most financially successful and culturally impactful films to emerge from the American film industry in recent years. When it was released in 2018 it broke numerous records and resonated with audiences all around the world in ways which transcended the dimensions of the superhero film. In Black Panther: Interrogating a Cultural Phenomenon author Terence McSweeney explores the film from a diverse range of perspectives, seeing it not only as a comic book adaptation and a superhero film, but also a dynamic contribution to the discourse of both African and African American studies.
Black Panther: Interrogating a Cultural Phenomenon argues that Black Panther is one of the defining American films of the last decade and the most remarkable title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2008-). The MCU has become the largest film franchise in the history of the medium and has even shaped the contours of the contemporary blockbuster, but the narratives within it have almost exclusively perpetuated largely unambiguous fantasies of American heroism and exceptionalism. In contrast, Black Panther complicates this by engaging in an entirely different mythos in its portrayal of an African nation—never colonized by Europe—as the most powerful and technologically advanced in the world. McSweeney charts how and why Black Panther became a cultural phenomenon and also a battleground on which a war of meaning was waged at a very particular time in American history.
Tanya Long Bennett (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496836847
- eISBN:
- 9781496836892
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496836847.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
A white woman living in segregated Georgia during the first half of the twentieth century, Lillian Smith surprised readers with stories of mixed-race love affairs, mob attacks on “outsiders,” and ...
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A white woman living in segregated Georgia during the first half of the twentieth century, Lillian Smith surprised readers with stories of mixed-race love affairs, mob attacks on “outsiders,” and young female campers exploring their sexuality. Critical Essays on the Writings of Lillian Smith considers Smith’s evolution from a young girls’ camp director into a courageous artist engaging difficult topics with frankness and courage. She did not pull punches in her portrayals of the South, yet she devoted herself to the artist’s role as she saw it: to lead readers toward a better understanding of themselves and a more fulfilling existence. Smith’s writings cut to the core of the neurotic behaviors she observed and participated in as a Southerner. To draw readers into her exploration of those behaviors, she invites them into compelling stories, employing literary techniques that foster critical reconsideration of stubbornly dominant ideologies. With words as her medium, she sketches maps of fictionalized Southern places, in the process revealing the markers of wounds and disfunction. Smith offers readers an intimate glimpse into her own childhood as well as the psychological traumas that all Southerners experience and help to perpetuate. Comprised of seven essays by contemporary Smith scholars, Critical Essays on the Writings of Lillian Smith explores Smith’s writings in an attempt to yield a clear portrait of this charismatic figure, whose work was crucial in her own time and is profoundly relevant in the twenty-first century, as well.Less
A white woman living in segregated Georgia during the first half of the twentieth century, Lillian Smith surprised readers with stories of mixed-race love affairs, mob attacks on “outsiders,” and young female campers exploring their sexuality. Critical Essays on the Writings of Lillian Smith considers Smith’s evolution from a young girls’ camp director into a courageous artist engaging difficult topics with frankness and courage. She did not pull punches in her portrayals of the South, yet she devoted herself to the artist’s role as she saw it: to lead readers toward a better understanding of themselves and a more fulfilling existence. Smith’s writings cut to the core of the neurotic behaviors she observed and participated in as a Southerner. To draw readers into her exploration of those behaviors, she invites them into compelling stories, employing literary techniques that foster critical reconsideration of stubbornly dominant ideologies. With words as her medium, she sketches maps of fictionalized Southern places, in the process revealing the markers of wounds and disfunction. Smith offers readers an intimate glimpse into her own childhood as well as the psychological traumas that all Southerners experience and help to perpetuate. Comprised of seven essays by contemporary Smith scholars, Critical Essays on the Writings of Lillian Smith explores Smith’s writings in an attempt to yield a clear portrait of this charismatic figure, whose work was crucial in her own time and is profoundly relevant in the twenty-first century, as well.
Kristin Waters
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496836748
- eISBN:
- 9781496836731
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496836748.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
In 1833 Maria W. Stewart told a gathering at the African Masonic Hall on Boston’s Beacon Hill, “African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in ...
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In 1833 Maria W. Stewart told a gathering at the African Masonic Hall on Boston’s Beacon Hill, “African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in these United States.” She held that the founding principles of the United States must extend to all people, otherwise they are merely the hypocritical expression of an ungodly white power. This first-ever biography of a profoundly significant writer explores her early life as an indentured servant in Hartford, Connecticut. Later, she defied adversity, journeying to Boston where she met and married a wealthy commercial agent and former seaman and became a powerful force within the lively black community on Beacon Hill’s North Slope. Between 1831-1833 Stewart’s “intellectual productions” ranged across topics including true emancipation for African Americans, abolition, the hypocrisy of white Christianity, black liberation theology, and gender inequity. Along with David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, (1829), her body of work constitutes a significant foundation for black radical politics.Less
In 1833 Maria W. Stewart told a gathering at the African Masonic Hall on Boston’s Beacon Hill, “African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in these United States.” She held that the founding principles of the United States must extend to all people, otherwise they are merely the hypocritical expression of an ungodly white power. This first-ever biography of a profoundly significant writer explores her early life as an indentured servant in Hartford, Connecticut. Later, she defied adversity, journeying to Boston where she met and married a wealthy commercial agent and former seaman and became a powerful force within the lively black community on Beacon Hill’s North Slope. Between 1831-1833 Stewart’s “intellectual productions” ranged across topics including true emancipation for African Americans, abolition, the hypocrisy of white Christianity, black liberation theology, and gender inequity. Along with David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, (1829), her body of work constitutes a significant foundation for black radical politics.
Mike Mattison and Ernest Suarez
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496837271
- eISBN:
- 9781496837325
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496837271.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This unique and accessibly written study discusses the relationship between the blues, rock, folk, jazz, and poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it is anchored in the 1960s, when ...
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This unique and accessibly written study discusses the relationship between the blues, rock, folk, jazz, and poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it is anchored in the 1960s, when a concentration of artists transformed modes of popular music from entertainment to art-that-entertains. The authors (a professional musician and a literary historian) synthesize a wide range of writing about music—biographies, histories, articles in popular magazines, personal reminiscences, and a selective smattering of academic studies—and examine the development of a relatively new literary genre that they call poetic song verse. Poetic song verse was nurtured in the 50s and early 60s by the blues and in Beat coffee houses, and matured in the mid-to-late 60s in the art of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Gil Scott-Heron, and others who used voice, instrumentation, arrangement, and production to foreground semantically textured, often allusive, and evocative lyrics that resembled and engaged poetry. Among the topics Mattison and Suarez consider are: What, exactly, is this new genre? What were its origins? And how has it developed? How do we study and assess it? To answer these questions, the authors engage in an extended discussion of the roots of the relationship between blues-based music and poetry, and address how it developed into a distinct literary genre. The book balances historical details and analysis of particular songs with readability to create a lively, intelligent, and cohesive narrative that will provide a wide range of readers with an overarching perspective on the development of an exciting, relatively new literary genre.Less
This unique and accessibly written study discusses the relationship between the blues, rock, folk, jazz, and poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it is anchored in the 1960s, when a concentration of artists transformed modes of popular music from entertainment to art-that-entertains. The authors (a professional musician and a literary historian) synthesize a wide range of writing about music—biographies, histories, articles in popular magazines, personal reminiscences, and a selective smattering of academic studies—and examine the development of a relatively new literary genre that they call poetic song verse. Poetic song verse was nurtured in the 50s and early 60s by the blues and in Beat coffee houses, and matured in the mid-to-late 60s in the art of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Gil Scott-Heron, and others who used voice, instrumentation, arrangement, and production to foreground semantically textured, often allusive, and evocative lyrics that resembled and engaged poetry. Among the topics Mattison and Suarez consider are: What, exactly, is this new genre? What were its origins? And how has it developed? How do we study and assess it? To answer these questions, the authors engage in an extended discussion of the roots of the relationship between blues-based music and poetry, and address how it developed into a distinct literary genre. The book balances historical details and analysis of particular songs with readability to create a lively, intelligent, and cohesive narrative that will provide a wide range of readers with an overarching perspective on the development of an exciting, relatively new literary genre.
Christina L. Moss and Brandon Inabinet (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496836144
- eISBN:
- 9781496836199
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496836144.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Through ruined monuments and museums, storied traditions of food and music, Southern oratory and racism, architecture and brotherhood, the Southern United States is a powerful resource for reckoning ...
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Through ruined monuments and museums, storied traditions of food and music, Southern oratory and racism, architecture and brotherhood, the Southern United States is a powerful resource for reckoning with historical trauma on a global scale. Moss and Inabinet present a reconstruction of the South from this viewpoint, asking how a more diverse set of texts and voices, a more inclusive notion of geography, and a more critical analysis of power moves this reckoning forward. Toward this end, the book advances in three sections: a disruption of nostalgia, a decentering of old martyrs to carve out new archetypal identities, and communicative interventions to heal wounds against the marginalized. The South becomes not an exceptional, unique place, but a model for reinterpretation of regional rhetorics and who gets to speak for their place and time.Less
Through ruined monuments and museums, storied traditions of food and music, Southern oratory and racism, architecture and brotherhood, the Southern United States is a powerful resource for reckoning with historical trauma on a global scale. Moss and Inabinet present a reconstruction of the South from this viewpoint, asking how a more diverse set of texts and voices, a more inclusive notion of geography, and a more critical analysis of power moves this reckoning forward. Toward this end, the book advances in three sections: a disruption of nostalgia, a decentering of old martyrs to carve out new archetypal identities, and communicative interventions to heal wounds against the marginalized. The South becomes not an exceptional, unique place, but a model for reinterpretation of regional rhetorics and who gets to speak for their place and time.