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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
Phoebe Snow: Odd, Rare And Sublime, Vincent L. Stephens
Phoebe Snow: Odd, Rare And Sublime, Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
A draft from my work-in-progress essay collection on post-war American popular singing "Sound Love." The essay argues that Phoebe Snow is unique among her generation of singer-songwriters as she is more notable as an interpreter than as a writer. Her synthesis of elements from blues, jazz, pop, gospel and R&B defy category as does her artistry.
Soft Rock, Vincent L. Stephens
Soft Rock, Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
Soft rock refers to melodic vocal music with romantic themes and lush production typically associated with middle-aged taste cultures. I define the genre's place in the history of radio broadcasting, controversies over its artistic merit and its eclectic aesthetic.
What Child Is This?: Closely Reading Collectivity And Queer Childrearing In Lackawanna Blues And Noah’S Arc, Vincent L. Stephens
What Child Is This?: Closely Reading Collectivity And Queer Childrearing In Lackawanna Blues And Noah’S Arc, Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
Increasing hostilities toward intimate change are rooted in longstanding affective investments in a sexual normativity that oppresses multiple strands of intimacy, including African American kinship networks and same-sex coupling. Since homosexuality is always racialized sexuality and African American kinship patterns have always been marginal by U. S. heteronormative standards, the present essay unmasks the ways sexual normativity has obscured collectivity as a resistive strategy in the lives of two "alternative" intimate groups with important overlaps, black gay and lesbian communities and African American extended families. The essay interrogates sexual normativity by defining and affirming the relevance of black collectivity to …
Shaking The Closet: Analyzing Johnny Mathis’S Sexual Elusiveness, 1956-1982, Vincent L. Stephens
Shaking The Closet: Analyzing Johnny Mathis’S Sexual Elusiveness, 1956-1982, Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
Though pop crooner Johnny Mathis inadvertently revealed his homosexuality in a 1982 “off-the-record” interview his sexuality had long been an open secret prior to this disclosure. “Shaking the Closet” argues that the notion of “the closet” is insufficient for understanding Mathis’s career and those of many other seemingly “closeted” queer public figures. The presentation suggests that the non-threatening sexual image Mathis presented in the 1950s was an overt commercial strategy intended to appease white audiences and adhere to an imperative for public respectability, an enduring theme within African-American cultural politics. Despite these seeming compromises close critical attention to his musical …
Crooning On The Fault Lines: Theorizing Jazz And Pop Vocal Singing Discourse In The Rock Era, 1955-1978, Vincent L. Stephens
Crooning On The Fault Lines: Theorizing Jazz And Pop Vocal Singing Discourse In The Rock Era, 1955-1978, Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
The critical boundaries drawn between pop crooning and jazz singing are less discrete than commonly perceived by critics and historians. Commercial choices rather than clear-cut aesthetic differences have influenced classifications of non-improvisers like Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee as “jazz” singers, a category presumed to represent the ultimate in vocal interpretation. Comparatively, singers like Johnny Mathis and Barbra Streisand are aesthetically similar to prerock crooners (PRCs) but typically understood as pop singers and thus on a lower interpretive tier. This article interrogates the binary by examining the overlaps and divergences between PRCs whose recording careers (mostly) began during the big …
American Infants: Coping With Trauma And Becoming Historical In A Home At The End Of The World And American Pastoral., Vincent L. Stephens
American Infants: Coping With Trauma And Becoming Historical In A Home At The End Of The World And American Pastoral., Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
A literary analysis of the depiction of postwar child and child-like figures in the novels A Home at the End of the World and American Pastoral.
Pop Goes The Rapper: A Close Reading Of Eminem’S Genderphobia, Vincent L. Stephens
Pop Goes The Rapper: A Close Reading Of Eminem’S Genderphobia, Vincent L. Stephens
Vincent L Stephens
This article argues that controversial hip-hopper Eminem is more properly termed a genderphobe than a homophobe. Eminem consistently uses homophobic language to critique gender behaviour, not sexual orientation. Focusing on genderphobic lyrics more accurately reveals hip-hop culture's emphasis on gender behaviour rather than the emphasis on sexual object-choice that homophobia implies. The focus on genderphobia also highlights a discriminatory practice aimed toward external behaviour that is related to homophobia but operates differently in certain cultural realms. I ground my discussion by focusing on the centrality of authenticity in hip-hop and gender propriety's centrality in comprising hip-hop notions of authenticity. Additionally, …