Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lay It On The Line: The Life And Music Of Gladys Bentley, Bianki Torres, J.

Doctoral Dissertations

This work is a historical biography of Gladys Bentley and her blues music. She was a cross-dressing entertainer from the Harlem Renaissance and performed popular songs with added, sometimes improvised sexual innuendo. This study considers the performances of her recorded and written material as trans music, meaning, that black music provided a platform to determine racial, gendered, and sexual cultural expressions changing over time, however, always rooted in black vernacular culture. Using showbills, promotional material, studio recordings and short autobiography, this study follows Bentley’s career as “male impersonator” and the effects lesbian/gay (queer) culture had on her blues. Also, I …

The Voice Of The Other: The Influence Of Capitalism On The Representation Of Gender And Race In Western Classical Music, Marie Comuzzo

Masters Theses

This thesis argues that in order to understand the non-representation of women and BIPOC in the Western musical canon, the analysis of their cultural musical production and reception must start in early modern period, a time heavily influenced by the establishment of capitalism. Intertwining political feminist studies, critical race theory and musicology critique, I argue that the witch hunts and the inhumane colonial practices in Africa and the America (fundamental to establish capitalism as a global system), had an important role in shaping Western musical culture as homogeneous and monolithic. Thus, I first trace the change in female customs in …

“The Blackness Of Blackness”: Meta-Black Identity In 20th/21st Century African American Culture, Casey Hayman

Doctoral Dissertations

The central claim in this dissertation is that much contemporary African American cultural expression would be better conceptualized not as “post-black,” as some would have it, but as what I call “meta-black.” I use the preface “meta-” because while this contemporary black identity also resists sometimes constrictive conceptions of “authentic” black identity from within the African American community, I diverge from theorists of “post-blackness” in observing the ways that, as Nicole Fleetwood observes, blackness necessarily “circulates” within a technologically-driven mediascape, and these postmodern black subjects work within and against the constraints of this aural-visual regime of blackness in order to …

Peter Mack Show, Peter Mack

Masters Theses

My animations and videos are personal articulations and reflections of the roles in life I assume: father, employee and artist. I have a particular interest in the seemingly mundane interactions in life, which often becomes a starting point for me to explore larger themes of family life, failure, and happiness. I approach these themes with humor and playfulness. The “show-and-tell” manner of many of my narratives, working in tandem with humor and DIY production values, gives my work the feeling of a strange children’s educational TV show in which I play the host, while underlining the personal nature of my …

Songs Of Ishq, Freedom And Rebellion: Selected Kafis Of Bulleh Shah In Translation, Zainab Sattar

Masters Theses

Abdullah Shah (1680-1757) was the birth name of the boy who would later become one of the most eminent Sufi poets of South Asia, and the master of Sufi lyrics in Punjabi—Bulleh Shah. Living during times of strife and major conflict between the Sikhs and the crumbling Mughal Empire, Bulleh Shah wrote poetry with an underlying humanist and tolerant philosophy that challenged the turmoil of his times. Blind to the bounds of religion and caste in an increasingly divided India, Bullah’s spiritual philosophy and his message of equality found voice in his kafis—a genre of poetry indigenous to the …

Cultural Subtexts And Social Functions Of Domestic Music-Making In Jane Austen’S England, Lidia A. Chang

Masters Theses

Barring a few notable exceptions, English music between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries earns scant notice in music history textbooks, despite overwhelming evidence that England enjoyed a vibrant musical culture, especially during the Georgian era. However, I will argue that the English of this period were, in many respects, even more committed to music than their continental counterparts. The problem, for England, was not that it made no music during this period, but that it made the wrong kind of music, and enjoyed it in the wrong ways. At a time when Germanic critics like E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.B. Marx …

Sound-Off! An Introduction To The Study Of American Military Marching Cadences, Travis G. Salley

Masters Theses

Cadences are call and response marching songs sung by military personnel during drill and ceremony. This music originated in the United States in 1943 and has spread to militaries across the world. It is typically heard at basic training installations where it is used to help resocialize trainees into soldiers and during unit physical training. The lyrics of cadences often engage with facts of military culture: exploring the reality of combat and military life, instilling motivation, and developing unit cohesion.

Scholarship in this field displays significant gaps when it comes to the development of the military cadence, which my thesis …

Hanns Eisler's "Das Vorbild" And The Rebuilding Of Musical Culture In The German Democratic Republic, Alyssa Wells

Masters Theses

In his essay, “Musik und Musikverständnis” (1927), Hanns Eisler (1898-1962) wrote that "the evaluation of a piece of music calls for the understanding of the elements of harmony, polyphony, and form," and that one who is not privy to this understanding will "be in the same situation as one who hears a speech in Chinese, without an understanding of Chinese.” Eisler maintained that music could be rendered intelligible through “a gradual rebuilding of musical culture.” This new musical culture, which he believed could only occur after the proletariat seized societal power from the bourgeoisie, would promote musical education and encourage …

Problem-Solving Pedagogy: A Foundation For Restructuring, Updating, And Improving Undergraduate Theory And Musicianship Curricula, Michael T. Simonelli

Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to provide the ideological and practical foundation for an improved approach to undergraduate theory and musicianship pedagogy. I will discuss the structure of conventional theory programs and explore problems inherent to traditional curriculum design. Problem-solving pedagogy, an approach rooted in creative composition and improvisation, will be presented as a complement to traditional theory pedagogy. Balancing problem-solving pedagogy with a more traditional pedagogical approach will provide a practical foundation for improving undergraduate theory and musicianship curricula.

The Political Economy Of Cultural Production: Essays On Music And Class, Ian J. Seda Irizarry

Open Access Dissertations

Overview

As an activity that produces wealth, musical production and its effects have largely been neglected by the economics profession. This dissertation seeks contribute to a small but growing literature on the subject by analyzing musical production through a particular class analytical lens of political economy.

A first problem that has encountered many within political economy, specifically within its radical variant of Marxism, is how to understand music in relation to the social totality. In the first essay of this work I provide a critical review of the literature that approaches music through the "base-superstructure metaphor", a tool of analysis …

Spiritual, Blues, And Jazz People In African American Fiction, A Yemisi Jimoh, Phd

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

Spiritual, Blues, And Jazz People In African American Fiction, A Yęmisi Jimoh, Phd

A Yęmisi Jimoh

Literature and music

"Giving Back To The Community!" Interview With Gil Scott-Heron, February 1995, Amilcar Shabazz

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

GIL SCOTT-HERON is a legendary musician in the tradition of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Larry Neal and other Black cultural artists who helped raise the socio-political consciousness during the sixties. Many credit him as the most influential figure in the early genesis of rap music. His incorporation of wordsongs throughout most of his music helped lay the basis for today's rap artists. Beginning in 1970 with SMALL TALK AT 125TH & LENOX, he has recorded over 22 albums, published two novels and three works of poetry, and has performed throughout the world. In 1994, Gil Scott-Heron, after a 12-year absence …