Conjuring freedom : music and masculinity in the Civil War's "Gospel Army" / Johari Jabir.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jabir, Johari, author.

Series:

Black performance and cultural criticism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Army. South Carolina Volunteers, 1st (1862-1864).

United States.

United States. Army--African American troops.

United States. Army.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823-1911.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth.

African Americans--Music--History and criticism.

African Americans.

African Americans--Music.

Spirituals (Songs)--History and criticism.

Spirituals (Songs).

Ring shout (Dance).

Masculinity.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--African Americans.

History.

Armed Forces--African American troops.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 181 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2017]

Summary:

Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Civil War's "Gospel Army" analyzes the songs of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment of Black soldiers who met nightly in the performance of the ring shout. In this study, acknowledging the importance of conjure as a religious, political, and epistemological practice, Johari Jabir demonstrates how the musical performance allowed troop members to embody new identities in relation to national citizenship, militarism, and masculinity in more inclusive ways. Jabir also establishes how these musical practices of the regiment persisted long after the Civil War in Black culture, resisting, for instance, the paternalism and co-optive state antiracism of the film Glory, and the assumption that Blacks need to be deracinated to be full citizens. Reflecting the structure of the ring shout--the counterclockwise song, dance, drum, and story in African American history and culture--Conjuring Freedom offers three new concepts to cultural studies in order to describe the practices, techniques, and implications of the troop's performance: (1) Black Communal Conservatories, borrowing from Robert Farris Thompson's "invisible academies" to describe the structural but spontaneous quality of black music-making, (2) Listening Hermeneutics, which accounts for the generative and material affects of sound on meaning-making, and (3) Sonic Politics, which points to the political implications of music's use in contemporary representations of race and history.

Contents:

A strange fulfillment of dreams: racial fetish and fantasy in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's Army life in a Black regiment

The collective will to conjure: religion, ring shout, and spiritual militancy in a Black regiment

One more valiant soldier: music and masculinity in a Black regiment

Moon rise: songs of loss, lament, and liberation in a Black regiment

Military "glory" or racial horror

Postlude: My Army cross over.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-169) and index.

ISBN:

9780814213308

0814213308

9780814253946

0814253946

OCLC:

959265511

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description