Roshanak Kheshti
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479867011
- eISBN:
- 9781479861125
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479867011.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Fearing the rapid disappearance of indigenous cultures, twentieth-century American ethnographers turned to the phonograph to salvage native languages and musical practices. Prominent among these ...
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Fearing the rapid disappearance of indigenous cultures, twentieth-century American ethnographers turned to the phonograph to salvage native languages and musical practices. Prominent among these early “songcatchers” were white women of comfortable class standing, similar to the female consumers targeted by the music industry as the gramophone became increasingly present in bourgeois homes. Through these simultaneous movements, listening became constructed as a feminized practice, one that craved exotic sounds and mythologized the ‘other’ that made the. In Modernity’s Ear, Roshanak Kheshti examines the ways in which racialized and gendered sounds became fetishized and, in turn, capitalized on by an emergent American world music industry through the promotion of an economy of desire. Taking a mixed-methods approach that draws on anthropology and sound studies, Kheshti locates sound as both representative and constitutive of culture and power. Through analyses of film, photography, recordings, and radio, as well as ethnographic fieldwork at a San Francisco-based world music record company, Kheshti politicizes the feminine in the contemporary world music industry. Deploying critical theory to read the fantasy of the feminized listener and feminized organ of the ear, Modernity’s Ear ultimately explores the importance of pleasure in constituting the listening self. The chapters in Modernity’s Ear are organized around the particular ways in which sound’s form is instrumentalized and utilized by the world music culture industry writ large to produce racialized and gendered encounters in the listening event. The familiar tropes deployed in the critical examination of world music—hybridity, appropriation, identity, authenticity, orality, and field recording—are upended in six chapters that reread these formations instead as miscegenation, incorporation, signifiance (loss of self), aurality, and refusal. This reorientation toward the embodied encounters and subjective outcomes staged by the WMCI enables a critical engagement with the utopian claims about music that motivate this very study.Less
Fearing the rapid disappearance of indigenous cultures, twentieth-century American ethnographers turned to the phonograph to salvage native languages and musical practices. Prominent among these early “songcatchers” were white women of comfortable class standing, similar to the female consumers targeted by the music industry as the gramophone became increasingly present in bourgeois homes. Through these simultaneous movements, listening became constructed as a feminized practice, one that craved exotic sounds and mythologized the ‘other’ that made the. In Modernity’s Ear, Roshanak Kheshti examines the ways in which racialized and gendered sounds became fetishized and, in turn, capitalized on by an emergent American world music industry through the promotion of an economy of desire. Taking a mixed-methods approach that draws on anthropology and sound studies, Kheshti locates sound as both representative and constitutive of culture and power. Through analyses of film, photography, recordings, and radio, as well as ethnographic fieldwork at a San Francisco-based world music record company, Kheshti politicizes the feminine in the contemporary world music industry. Deploying critical theory to read the fantasy of the feminized listener and feminized organ of the ear, Modernity’s Ear ultimately explores the importance of pleasure in constituting the listening self. The chapters in Modernity’s Ear are organized around the particular ways in which sound’s form is instrumentalized and utilized by the world music culture industry writ large to produce racialized and gendered encounters in the listening event. The familiar tropes deployed in the critical examination of world music—hybridity, appropriation, identity, authenticity, orality, and field recording—are upended in six chapters that reread these formations instead as miscegenation, incorporation, signifiance (loss of self), aurality, and refusal. This reorientation toward the embodied encounters and subjective outcomes staged by the WMCI enables a critical engagement with the utopian claims about music that motivate this very study.
Jack Zipes
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691160580
- eISBN:
- 9781400852581
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691160580.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Folk Literature
This chapter discusses how the Grimms became involved in hyping their own tales to change their reception at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It first considers some of the theoretical ...
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This chapter discusses how the Grimms became involved in hyping their own tales to change their reception at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It first considers some of the theoretical aspects of hyping and the particular role hyping plays in the media paratexts of the culture industry. Hereafter the chapter reviews how the Brothers Grimm changed the format and scope of their tales, primarily under the influence of Taylor's 1823 translation, German Popular Stories, to make their tales more accessible to the general reading public in Germany. Lastly, the chapter examines some recent filmic adaptations of fairy tales and considers whether the hyping of these films detracts from the value of the fairy-tale genre and storytelling in general.Less
This chapter discusses how the Grimms became involved in hyping their own tales to change their reception at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It first considers some of the theoretical aspects of hyping and the particular role hyping plays in the media paratexts of the culture industry. Hereafter the chapter reviews how the Brothers Grimm changed the format and scope of their tales, primarily under the influence of Taylor's 1823 translation, German Popular Stories, to make their tales more accessible to the general reading public in Germany. Lastly, the chapter examines some recent filmic adaptations of fairy tales and considers whether the hyping of these films detracts from the value of the fairy-tale genre and storytelling in general.
Ehrhard Bahr
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520251281
- eISBN:
- 9780520933804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520251281.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter focuses on the concept of the “culture industry,” as defined in Dialectic of Enlightenment, and on Theodor W. Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Music of 1949 and his late Aesthetic Theory of ...
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This chapter focuses on the concept of the “culture industry,” as defined in Dialectic of Enlightenment, and on Theodor W. Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Music of 1949 and his late Aesthetic Theory of 1970. The process of enlightenment had proved both progressive and regressive, and culminated in a crisis around 1933 that needed not only political action to decide its outcome, but also philosophical reflection to chart the future course of enlightenment. The chapter shows how Adorno, in his book on Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, integrated the development of modern music into the historical process and identified resistance to society as the function of art. Later in his aesthetics, Adorno added the concept of art as historical record and the permanent language of human suffering. As a close reading of the chapter “The Culture Industry” shows, Max Horkheimer and Adorno suggest similarities between Adolf Hitler and Hollywood, or between German national socialism and American mass culture.Less
This chapter focuses on the concept of the “culture industry,” as defined in Dialectic of Enlightenment, and on Theodor W. Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Music of 1949 and his late Aesthetic Theory of 1970. The process of enlightenment had proved both progressive and regressive, and culminated in a crisis around 1933 that needed not only political action to decide its outcome, but also philosophical reflection to chart the future course of enlightenment. The chapter shows how Adorno, in his book on Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, integrated the development of modern music into the historical process and identified resistance to society as the function of art. Later in his aesthetics, Adorno added the concept of art as historical record and the permanent language of human suffering. As a close reading of the chapter “The Culture Industry” shows, Max Horkheimer and Adorno suggest similarities between Adolf Hitler and Hollywood, or between German national socialism and American mass culture.
Juliet John
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199257928
- eISBN:
- 9780191594854
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199257928.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The Conclusion analyses the larger implications of the debate surrounding the opening of the commercial visitor attraction, ‘Dickens World’ in Chatham, Kent, in 2007. It argues that the site ...
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The Conclusion analyses the larger implications of the debate surrounding the opening of the commercial visitor attraction, ‘Dickens World’ in Chatham, Kent, in 2007. It argues that the site represents a challenge to the process of familiarization and ‘heritagization’ that has accompanied Dickens's rise to respectability and diminished his ability to empower ‘the people’ in the sense of those outside the cultural elite. Disparaging comparisons between Dickens World and Disney stem partly from a prevailing distrust in the modern era of the ‘culture industry’ — but also to the perceived Americanization of Dickens. The chapter argues that Dickens World reverses of the dissociation of Dickens from materialism that has accompanied his rise to ‘English iconhood’ in the public imagination. Moreover, if ancestry and heritage involve an idea of value residing in veneration, in an emotional relationship between the past and the present which is nonetheless hierarchical, then the accessibility, materialism and indeed playfulness of Dickens World break the bonds of ancestry. It arguably had to do so if it wanted to play to the lowbrow end of the spectrum in today's segregated cultural marketplace; its success or failure will thus tell us a great deal about whether or not Dickens's inclusive vision for the amusements of the people is still viable in the twenty‐first century, and about whether Dickens continues to amuse the people.Less
The Conclusion analyses the larger implications of the debate surrounding the opening of the commercial visitor attraction, ‘Dickens World’ in Chatham, Kent, in 2007. It argues that the site represents a challenge to the process of familiarization and ‘heritagization’ that has accompanied Dickens's rise to respectability and diminished his ability to empower ‘the people’ in the sense of those outside the cultural elite. Disparaging comparisons between Dickens World and Disney stem partly from a prevailing distrust in the modern era of the ‘culture industry’ — but also to the perceived Americanization of Dickens. The chapter argues that Dickens World reverses of the dissociation of Dickens from materialism that has accompanied his rise to ‘English iconhood’ in the public imagination. Moreover, if ancestry and heritage involve an idea of value residing in veneration, in an emotional relationship between the past and the present which is nonetheless hierarchical, then the accessibility, materialism and indeed playfulness of Dickens World break the bonds of ancestry. It arguably had to do so if it wanted to play to the lowbrow end of the spectrum in today's segregated cultural marketplace; its success or failure will thus tell us a great deal about whether or not Dickens's inclusive vision for the amusements of the people is still viable in the twenty‐first century, and about whether Dickens continues to amuse the people.
Benjamin Y. Fong
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231176682
- eISBN:
- 9780231542616
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231176682.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Employs the drive theory developed in the first three chapters toward a reinterpretation of the culture industry thesis of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
Employs the drive theory developed in the first three chapters toward a reinterpretation of the culture industry thesis of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
John Carlos Rowe (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520098701
- eISBN:
- 9780520943797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520098701.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
This chapters explores the various ways in which U.S. cultural production, also known as the “the culture industry,” conditioned American citizens to accept the undisguised militarism and jingoistic ...
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This chapters explores the various ways in which U.S. cultural production, also known as the “the culture industry,” conditioned American citizens to accept the undisguised militarism and jingoistic nationalism driving U.S. foreign policy. The culture industry today encompasses a wide range of nominally different political positions, so that in many respects left, liberal, and conservative cultural works often achieve complementary ends. Exposures of U.S. military propaganda during the war have continued in news coverage of the supposed “rebuilding” of the political and economic infrastructure in Iraq. Public concern, regarding the federal government's veracity, is evident in the debate regarding who was actually responsible for the disinformation regarding the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” used as the principal justification for the invasion of Iraq. The chapter follows the capitalization of “cultural exports” ranging from Hollywood entertainment and television programming to digital technologies and their protocols for communication that aims towards rapid Americanization of the world.Less
This chapters explores the various ways in which U.S. cultural production, also known as the “the culture industry,” conditioned American citizens to accept the undisguised militarism and jingoistic nationalism driving U.S. foreign policy. The culture industry today encompasses a wide range of nominally different political positions, so that in many respects left, liberal, and conservative cultural works often achieve complementary ends. Exposures of U.S. military propaganda during the war have continued in news coverage of the supposed “rebuilding” of the political and economic infrastructure in Iraq. Public concern, regarding the federal government's veracity, is evident in the debate regarding who was actually responsible for the disinformation regarding the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” used as the principal justification for the invasion of Iraq. The chapter follows the capitalization of “cultural exports” ranging from Hollywood entertainment and television programming to digital technologies and their protocols for communication that aims towards rapid Americanization of the world.
Treva B. Lindsey
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252041020
- eISBN:
- 9780252099571
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252041020.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter closely engages African American beauty culture. Advertisements for beauty products such as hair pomades and skin bleaches comprised a significant portion of advertisements in African ...
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This chapter closely engages African American beauty culture. Advertisements for beauty products such as hair pomades and skin bleaches comprised a significant portion of advertisements in African American newspapers throughout the early twentieth century. The advertisements for beauty products targeting African American women unveil a discourse and an industry that were instrumental to the materialization of a New Negro culture. Through advertisements and open discussions about African American beauty, self-presentation and adornment shifted from an individual/private sphere issue to a formidable public culture site of individual and collective expressivity during the New Negro era. African American beauty culture thrived as a site of reinvention and re-imagining for New Negro women. It also offered multiple authorial roles in which these women could partake, including: producer, consumer, and manufacturer. In Washington, this black women’s beauty culture was a thriving industry as well as a battleground and playground for black women actualizing themselves as New Negro women.Less
This chapter closely engages African American beauty culture. Advertisements for beauty products such as hair pomades and skin bleaches comprised a significant portion of advertisements in African American newspapers throughout the early twentieth century. The advertisements for beauty products targeting African American women unveil a discourse and an industry that were instrumental to the materialization of a New Negro culture. Through advertisements and open discussions about African American beauty, self-presentation and adornment shifted from an individual/private sphere issue to a formidable public culture site of individual and collective expressivity during the New Negro era. African American beauty culture thrived as a site of reinvention and re-imagining for New Negro women. It also offered multiple authorial roles in which these women could partake, including: producer, consumer, and manufacturer. In Washington, this black women’s beauty culture was a thriving industry as well as a battleground and playground for black women actualizing themselves as New Negro women.
John Lie
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520283114
- eISBN:
- 9780520958944
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520283114.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Chapter 2 delineates the rise of K-pop and explores its political-economic background, South Korea’s export-orientated innovation economy, and finally the aesthetics of K-pop.
Chapter 2 delineates the rise of K-pop and explores its political-economic background, South Korea’s export-orientated innovation economy, and finally the aesthetics of K-pop.
Samuel Weber
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823224159
- eISBN:
- 9780823235841
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823224159.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter attempts to summarize an array of Adorno's works and analyses of various concepts as a critique of Kierkegaard's texts or as a comparison with a Hegelian line of ...
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This chapter attempts to summarize an array of Adorno's works and analyses of various concepts as a critique of Kierkegaard's texts or as a comparison with a Hegelian line of thought. Adorno shares his thoughts on concreteness and a conception of knowledge as an active process of self-constituting rather than a passive medium. Among some of the concepts discussed in this chapter is that which concerns reading: Hegel requires repeated reading, but one could easily fool someone who relies on repeated reading. Adorno also gives focus to Hegel's concept of reading as an art. Adorno analyzes the “Culture Industry” and associates this with the critique of the “Critical Theory”. Lastly, Adorno turns his attention to the importance of the use of language and pseudonyms and their philosophical implications.Less
This chapter attempts to summarize an array of Adorno's works and analyses of various concepts as a critique of Kierkegaard's texts or as a comparison with a Hegelian line of thought. Adorno shares his thoughts on concreteness and a conception of knowledge as an active process of self-constituting rather than a passive medium. Among some of the concepts discussed in this chapter is that which concerns reading: Hegel requires repeated reading, but one could easily fool someone who relies on repeated reading. Adorno also gives focus to Hegel's concept of reading as an art. Adorno analyzes the “Culture Industry” and associates this with the critique of the “Critical Theory”. Lastly, Adorno turns his attention to the importance of the use of language and pseudonyms and their philosophical implications.
Peter Uwe Hohendahl
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452369
- eISBN:
- 9780801469282
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452369.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This book reexamines Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory along with his other writings on aesthetics in light of the unexpected return of the aesthetic to today's cultural debates. Is Adorno's ...
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This book reexamines Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory along with his other writings on aesthetics in light of the unexpected return of the aesthetic to today's cultural debates. Is Adorno's aesthetic theory still relevant today? This question is answered with an emphatic yes. As the book shows, a careful reading of the work exposes different questions and arguments today than it did in the past. Over the years Adorno's concern over the fate of art in a late capitalist society has met with everything from suspicion to indifference. In part this could be explained by relative unfamiliarity with the German dialectical tradition in North America. Today's debate is better informed, more multifaceted, and further removed from the immediate aftermath of the Cold War and of the shadow of postmodernism. Adorno's insistence on the radical autonomy of art has much to offer contemporary discussions of art and the aesthetic in search of new responses to the pervasive effects of a neoliberal art market and culture industry. The book shows how radically transformative Adorno's ideas have been and how thoroughly they have shaped current discussions in aesthetics. Among the topics considered are the role of art in modernism and postmodernism, the truth claims of artworks, the function of the ugly in modern artworks, the precarious value of the literary tradition, and the surprising significance of realism for Adorno.Less
This book reexamines Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory along with his other writings on aesthetics in light of the unexpected return of the aesthetic to today's cultural debates. Is Adorno's aesthetic theory still relevant today? This question is answered with an emphatic yes. As the book shows, a careful reading of the work exposes different questions and arguments today than it did in the past. Over the years Adorno's concern over the fate of art in a late capitalist society has met with everything from suspicion to indifference. In part this could be explained by relative unfamiliarity with the German dialectical tradition in North America. Today's debate is better informed, more multifaceted, and further removed from the immediate aftermath of the Cold War and of the shadow of postmodernism. Adorno's insistence on the radical autonomy of art has much to offer contemporary discussions of art and the aesthetic in search of new responses to the pervasive effects of a neoliberal art market and culture industry. The book shows how radically transformative Adorno's ideas have been and how thoroughly they have shaped current discussions in aesthetics. Among the topics considered are the role of art in modernism and postmodernism, the truth claims of artworks, the function of the ugly in modern artworks, the precarious value of the literary tradition, and the surprising significance of realism for Adorno.
John Lie
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520283114
- eISBN:
- 9780520958944
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520283114.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The introductory chapter provides a genealogy of popular music in South Korea and charts a series of rifts that separates traditional Korean music from K-pop. In particular, Japanese and American ...
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The introductory chapter provides a genealogy of popular music in South Korea and charts a series of rifts that separates traditional Korean music from K-pop. In particular, Japanese and American influences are significant, as are the changing political-economic context of South Korea, including the salience of censorship.Less
The introductory chapter provides a genealogy of popular music in South Korea and charts a series of rifts that separates traditional Korean music from K-pop. In particular, Japanese and American influences are significant, as are the changing political-economic context of South Korea, including the salience of censorship.
Graham Huggan
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781781382967
- eISBN:
- 9781781384084
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382967.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter reprints the introduction to The Postcolonial Exotic to set the stage for all of the Bourdieu-inspired approaches to postcolonial studies that will follow. Huggan shows how the ...
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This chapter reprints the introduction to The Postcolonial Exotic to set the stage for all of the Bourdieu-inspired approaches to postcolonial studies that will follow. Huggan shows how the oppositional ethos of postcolonial studies runs up against the commodifying apparatus of postcoloniality. The emerging “alterity industry” and its exoticizing processes threaten the potentiality for critique that postcolonial studies seeks to offer. Yet Huggan also steers clear of reductive attacks on postcolonialism as therefore contaminated and complicit; in a context where the global market aspires to commodify all forms of resistance and opposition, there is no uncontaminated stance. Bourdieu offers Huggan conceptual tools to call attention to this tenuous positioning within which postcolonial studies is located in order to explore the possibilities for critique still offered by this contaminated space.Less
This chapter reprints the introduction to The Postcolonial Exotic to set the stage for all of the Bourdieu-inspired approaches to postcolonial studies that will follow. Huggan shows how the oppositional ethos of postcolonial studies runs up against the commodifying apparatus of postcoloniality. The emerging “alterity industry” and its exoticizing processes threaten the potentiality for critique that postcolonial studies seeks to offer. Yet Huggan also steers clear of reductive attacks on postcolonialism as therefore contaminated and complicit; in a context where the global market aspires to commodify all forms of resistance and opposition, there is no uncontaminated stance. Bourdieu offers Huggan conceptual tools to call attention to this tenuous positioning within which postcolonial studies is located in order to explore the possibilities for critique still offered by this contaminated space.
Carol A. Hess
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199919994
- eISBN:
- 9780199345618
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199919994.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
This chapter examines the climax of north-south sameness-embracing, the period following the outbreak of war in September 1939. One manifestation of Pan Americanist culture was Latin American–themed ...
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This chapter examines the climax of north-south sameness-embracing, the period following the outbreak of war in September 1939. One manifestation of Pan Americanist culture was Latin American–themed music by U.S. composers, much of which verged on the commercial. Virgil Thomson, who reviewed Villa-Lobos’s music (and whose antinationalist barbs parallel the sentiments of many Latin American composers and critics), laid the groundwork for Brazilian universalism. Villa-Lobos’s reputation in the United States also gained luster from the alliance between the Brazilian strongman Getúlio Vargas and the United States, cemented in 1942 after a long courtship and touted by art music critics and the U.S. music industry. Reflecting the commercial bent of much Pan Americanist culture, Villa-Lobos was also bound to Hollywood and the culture industry, as corroborated by his foray into the American musical, Magdalena, read here in the context of Pan Americanism’s abrupt deterioration during the early years of the cold war.Less
This chapter examines the climax of north-south sameness-embracing, the period following the outbreak of war in September 1939. One manifestation of Pan Americanist culture was Latin American–themed music by U.S. composers, much of which verged on the commercial. Virgil Thomson, who reviewed Villa-Lobos’s music (and whose antinationalist barbs parallel the sentiments of many Latin American composers and critics), laid the groundwork for Brazilian universalism. Villa-Lobos’s reputation in the United States also gained luster from the alliance between the Brazilian strongman Getúlio Vargas and the United States, cemented in 1942 after a long courtship and touted by art music critics and the U.S. music industry. Reflecting the commercial bent of much Pan Americanist culture, Villa-Lobos was also bound to Hollywood and the culture industry, as corroborated by his foray into the American musical, Magdalena, read here in the context of Pan Americanism’s abrupt deterioration during the early years of the cold war.
David Brackett
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520225411
- eISBN:
- 9780520925700
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520225411.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter explores how the idea of country music emerged through a confluence of forces, focusing on the case of Hank Williams. It comments on Chet Flippo's controversial 1981 biography of ...
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This chapter explores how the idea of country music emerged through a confluence of forces, focusing on the case of Hank Williams. It comments on Chet Flippo's controversial 1981 biography of Williams. It investigates how voices, lyrics and music create the effect of authenticity in country music and how this effect emerges and shifts historically. It also considers how the association of country music with the culture industry affects the production of authentic effects and how images of resistance and marginality may contribute to the popularity of artists and songs in country music.Less
This chapter explores how the idea of country music emerged through a confluence of forces, focusing on the case of Hank Williams. It comments on Chet Flippo's controversial 1981 biography of Williams. It investigates how voices, lyrics and music create the effect of authenticity in country music and how this effect emerges and shifts historically. It also considers how the association of country music with the culture industry affects the production of authentic effects and how images of resistance and marginality may contribute to the popularity of artists and songs in country music.
Ulf Olsson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520286641
- eISBN:
- 9780520961760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520286641.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The introduction provides with basic facts about the band, as well as the book’s basic theoretical perspective, inspired by the work of Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. Their theories make it ...
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The introduction provides with basic facts about the band, as well as the book’s basic theoretical perspective, inspired by the work of Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. Their theories make it possible to see the band as simultaneously part of and opposed to the culture industry. “Self-organization” is introduced as a flexible concept, applicable to many aspects of the band. Polarized representations of the band, by Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, respectively, serve as a background to the book’s critical discussion and evaluation of the band and its culture. Even the Grateful Dead, symbols of the counterculture, worked within a cultural market, but challenged it in different ways. The introduction argues that the band actually produced music with an aesthetic value, and thus political significance.Less
The introduction provides with basic facts about the band, as well as the book’s basic theoretical perspective, inspired by the work of Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. Their theories make it possible to see the band as simultaneously part of and opposed to the culture industry. “Self-organization” is introduced as a flexible concept, applicable to many aspects of the band. Polarized representations of the band, by Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, respectively, serve as a background to the book’s critical discussion and evaluation of the band and its culture. Even the Grateful Dead, symbols of the counterculture, worked within a cultural market, but challenged it in different ways. The introduction argues that the band actually produced music with an aesthetic value, and thus political significance.
Ulf Olsson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520286641
- eISBN:
- 9780520961760
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520286641.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
During their thirty years of existence, the Grateful Dead produced a musical as well as a cultural heritage that invites and rewards exploration and evaluation. This book engages critical theory in ...
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During their thirty years of existence, the Grateful Dead produced a musical as well as a cultural heritage that invites and rewards exploration and evaluation. This book engages critical theory in order to understand the band’s status and achievement, and what the cultural and political significance of the music as well as the wider phenomenon was, and is. The band and its music are studied in the tension between culture industry and self-organization. The first chapter looks at the dialectic of avant-garde and tradition in the mass cultural phenomenon that the Grateful Dead became. The second chapter builds on that analysis by directly engaging the political importance and legacy of a self-declared ”apolitical” band, assessing what ”politics” could mean in both the practices of the band and its audience as well as in the way mainstream America and law enforcement saw the band. The third and final chapter listens to the Grateful Dead improvising, presenting improvisation as the key element for any understanding both of the band’s music as well as its socio-political profile. A short coda summarizes the argument in a discussion of the band as an example of ”charismatic authority.”Less
During their thirty years of existence, the Grateful Dead produced a musical as well as a cultural heritage that invites and rewards exploration and evaluation. This book engages critical theory in order to understand the band’s status and achievement, and what the cultural and political significance of the music as well as the wider phenomenon was, and is. The band and its music are studied in the tension between culture industry and self-organization. The first chapter looks at the dialectic of avant-garde and tradition in the mass cultural phenomenon that the Grateful Dead became. The second chapter builds on that analysis by directly engaging the political importance and legacy of a self-declared ”apolitical” band, assessing what ”politics” could mean in both the practices of the band and its audience as well as in the way mainstream America and law enforcement saw the band. The third and final chapter listens to the Grateful Dead improvising, presenting improvisation as the key element for any understanding both of the band’s music as well as its socio-political profile. A short coda summarizes the argument in a discussion of the band as an example of ”charismatic authority.”
John Lie
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520283114
- eISBN:
- 9780520958944
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520283114.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
K-pop offers a history of South Korean popular music and charts the rise of K-pop as a distinct genre. In so doing, it probes not only the cultural transformation of South Korea but also the ...
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K-pop offers a history of South Korean popular music and charts the rise of K-pop as a distinct genre. In so doing, it probes not only the cultural transformation of South Korea but also the political-economic context of the music industry and the export-oriented innovation economy in South Korea.Less
K-pop offers a history of South Korean popular music and charts the rise of K-pop as a distinct genre. In so doing, it probes not only the cultural transformation of South Korea but also the political-economic context of the music industry and the export-oriented innovation economy in South Korea.
David Gilbert
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469622699
- eISBN:
- 9781469622712
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469622699.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explores how, by embracing and selling racial difference, black musicians were able to become leading cultural innovators, symbols of modern black representation, and central players in ...
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This chapter explores how, by embracing and selling racial difference, black musicians were able to become leading cultural innovators, symbols of modern black representation, and central players in the formation of modern American culture. This emerging racial formation was essentially strengthened by its diversity within the Manhattan marketplace. The popularity of ragtime empowered African American musicians to intervene in the city's local—but nationalizing—commercial culture industries with new and inventive musical commodities that, in turn, further propelled black innovators to the top of Manhattan markets. This reflexive, mutually propelling circuit promoted the increase of black artistry alongside the expansion of New York culture industries such as song publishing, musical theater, and vaudeville. It reinforced the idea that African American entertainers were some of the best in New York City and, increasingly, throughout America.Less
This chapter explores how, by embracing and selling racial difference, black musicians were able to become leading cultural innovators, symbols of modern black representation, and central players in the formation of modern American culture. This emerging racial formation was essentially strengthened by its diversity within the Manhattan marketplace. The popularity of ragtime empowered African American musicians to intervene in the city's local—but nationalizing—commercial culture industries with new and inventive musical commodities that, in turn, further propelled black innovators to the top of Manhattan markets. This reflexive, mutually propelling circuit promoted the increase of black artistry alongside the expansion of New York culture industries such as song publishing, musical theater, and vaudeville. It reinforced the idea that African American entertainers were some of the best in New York City and, increasingly, throughout America.
David E. James
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199387595
- eISBN:
- 9780199387632
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387595.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ ...
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Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ roll displaced the hegemony of the Great American Song book, the rock ’n’ roll musical both displaced and recreated the classic film musical. In developing new techniques for representing musical performance, the fans and entire cultural gestalt that the new music sustained, cinema became second only to records in the creation of a rock ’n’ roll culture. But even as cinema developed audio-visual compositions based on the music—forms of rock ’n’ roll visuality—it also had to confront the competition that rock ’n’ roll posed to itself and other components of the established culture industries.Less
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ roll displaced the hegemony of the Great American Song book, the rock ’n’ roll musical both displaced and recreated the classic film musical. In developing new techniques for representing musical performance, the fans and entire cultural gestalt that the new music sustained, cinema became second only to records in the creation of a rock ’n’ roll culture. But even as cinema developed audio-visual compositions based on the music—forms of rock ’n’ roll visuality—it also had to confront the competition that rock ’n’ roll posed to itself and other components of the established culture industries.
Shannon L. Mariotti
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813167336
- eISBN:
- 9780813167411
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167336.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter takes up the first moment of Adorno’s democratic project and gives a sense of how he portrayed the landscape of the United States to its own citizens, writing in English and in a more ...
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This chapter takes up the first moment of Adorno’s democratic project and gives a sense of how he portrayed the landscape of the United States to its own citizens, writing in English and in a more accessible register. Here he lays out the problem his program for democratic leadership as democratic pedagogy will address and discusses the de-democratizing forces in World War II–era America that impoverish citizens’ practice of autonomy. Various aspects of modern life in America, ranging from capitalism to liberalism to the culture industry, combine to make individuals feel small, disempowered, dependent, like passive objects that must adapt and accommodate existing social molds and forms rather than active subjects who feel that they have the agency to participate in shaping the patterns of their own lives. Adorno explores the de-democratizing factors of World War II–era America through an analysis of specific cultural objects. I show how Adorno sees the form of radio, the content of radio, and a weekly astrology column as ordinary, everyday objects that, like monads, reflect the larger tendencies of the social whole. He analyzes these specific things with a microscopic gaze to draw wider conclusions about the patterns and dynamics of everyday life in the United States.Less
This chapter takes up the first moment of Adorno’s democratic project and gives a sense of how he portrayed the landscape of the United States to its own citizens, writing in English and in a more accessible register. Here he lays out the problem his program for democratic leadership as democratic pedagogy will address and discusses the de-democratizing forces in World War II–era America that impoverish citizens’ practice of autonomy. Various aspects of modern life in America, ranging from capitalism to liberalism to the culture industry, combine to make individuals feel small, disempowered, dependent, like passive objects that must adapt and accommodate existing social molds and forms rather than active subjects who feel that they have the agency to participate in shaping the patterns of their own lives. Adorno explores the de-democratizing factors of World War II–era America through an analysis of specific cultural objects. I show how Adorno sees the form of radio, the content of radio, and a weekly astrology column as ordinary, everyday objects that, like monads, reflect the larger tendencies of the social whole. He analyzes these specific things with a microscopic gaze to draw wider conclusions about the patterns and dynamics of everyday life in the United States.
