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2. From Otello to Porgy: Blackness, masculinity, and morality in opera
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- André,Naomi, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2012
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: Blackness in opera: How race and blackness play out in opera.Pages: 11-31.(AN: 2012-00965).
- Notes:
- Around the beginning of the 20th century the codes for representing masculinity in opera began to change. This essay focuses on how the changing codes of masculinity in leading male roles are calibrated differently for white European characters and nonwhite characters with non-European ancestry (for example, African American, Caribbean, Moorish, or African) and shows how masculinity and heroism are brought together differently for black and non-black characters. The first section examines Giuseppe Verdi's Otello (1887) and focuses on a critical moment near the end of the opera that links orchestral developments in Italy at the end of the 19th century with the way Verdi dramatizes Otello's vicious murder of Desdemona. A broader overview considers four operas written in the first half of the 20th century: Berg's Wozzeck (1925), Krenek's Jonny spielt auf (1927), Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935), and Britten's Peter Grimes (1945). Two of these operas (Wozzeck and Peter Grimes) feature white European title characters, while the other two feature African American protagonists.
3. Potent crossroads: Where U2 and progressive awareness meet
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Seiler,Rachel E., (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2012
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: Exploring U2: Is this rock 'n' roll? Essays on the music, work, and influence of U2.Pages: 38-53.(AN: 2012-00001).
- Notes:
- Crossroads populate religious and folkloric beliefs all around the world. Stories of an intersection of dimensions, as well as of roads where a guardian-trickster deity awaits to carry human desires to the gods, are widely encountered in European, Caribbean, and West African lore (as well as the legends formed around blues and rock stars). The symbolism of the crossroads speaks directly to one's innate recognition of a charged metaphorical space; a space that is liminal, betwixt-and-between. This notion of the crossroads serves as inspiration for examining the relationship between U2's music and listeners' progressive political awareness—the marriage of critical consciousness and action for social justice and change. To this end, an in-depth study is carried out of six listeners' experiences at the potent crossroads of their developing progressive awareness and their encounters with U2's music.
4. The Clash: London calling (1979)
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Fournier,Karen, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2012
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: The album: A guide to pop music's most provocative, influential, and important creations.Vol.3: Adding punk attitude to the mix, 1974-1988.Pages: 159-164.(AN: 2012-13294).
- Notes:
- The third album by the Clash, London calling captured the zeitgeist of its time with references to various domestic and international news items that had captured the attention of Joe Strummer (née John Mellor) and Mick Jones as they composed the songs. Many seek to represent the state of Britain in the late 1970s, where an inflation rate of 25 percent and high unemployment fueled anger at the government and sparked attacks on minorities who were blamed for taking jobs that might otherwise have employed Britons. The album tackles such issues as racial disharmony, police brutality, unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, and the sense of alienation felt by many working-class youths and contextualized these social ills in a broader international frame with references to similar political and social crises in Spain, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.
5. The golden fleece: Music and cruise ship tourism
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Cashman,David W., (Author) and Hayward,Philip, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2014
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: The globalization of musics in transit: Music migration and tourism.Pages: 101-114.(AN: 2014-00419).
- Notes:
- Explores the onboard experience in situations of extreme musical commodification during cruising, with the ship resembling a floating pleasure palace that provides a monopolistic tourist environment that taps into the 'experience economy' concept. The authors' ethnographic insights reveal how music is a quintessential means to create congenial ambiance in order to encourage consumption of experience enhancements (like gambling, dancing, or drinking) and boost onboard revenue, especially through live music performance of various types and levels of interaction, whereby performer-audience interaction and participation play a major role in consumption of touristic music. While much of this music is drawn from familiar, predictable Western culture, some performances readily tap into tourists' expectations of journeying to and encountering the exotic Other, even if presented as part of their onboard experiences. Such touristic musical performances, which stereotypically include Caribbean bands performing calypso classics, Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley numbers, and tropicalist Western pop songs, are usually promoted as authentic extensions of the culture from which they originate. These situations of extreme commodification have not only transformed some of the most secluded locations into commercially viable tourist destinations, but have turned transport facilities themselves into hyper-commercialized locales of touristic consumption.
6. White face, black voice: Race, gender, and region in the music of the Boswell Sisters
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Stras,Laurie, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2011
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: Jazz.Pages: 153-202.(AN: 2011-21316).
- Notes:
- Reprint of the article abstracted as RILM ref]2007-01616/ref].