European University Institute Library

Black soundscapes, White stages, the meaning of Francophone sound in the Black Atlantic, Edwin C. Hill Jr

eng

Includes bibliographical references, discography, filmography and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Black soundscapes, White stages

discographiesbibliographyfilmographies

826526462

Edwin C. Hill Jr

Callaloo African diaspora series

the meaning of Francophone sound in the Black Atlantic

Black Soundscapes White Stages explores the role of sound in understanding the African Diaspora on both sides of the Atlantic, from the City of Light to the islands of the French Antilles. From the writings of European travelers in the seventeenth century to short-wave radio transmissions in the early twentieth century, Edwin C. Hill Jr. uses music, folk song, film, and poetry to listen for the tragic cri nègre. Building a conceptualization of black Atlantic sound inspired by Frantz Fanon's pioneering work on colonial speech and desire, Hill contends that sound constitutes a terrain of contestation, both violent and pleasurable, where colonial and anti-colonial ideas about race and gender are critically imagined, inscribed, explored, and resisted. In the process, this book explores the dreams and realizations of black diasporic mobility and separation as represented by some of its most powerful soundtexts and cultural practitioners, and it poses questions about their legacies for us today. In the process, thee dreams and realities of Black Atlantic mobility and separation as represented by some of its most powerful soundtexts and cultural practitioners, such as the poetry of Léon-Gontran Damas<U+0127> a founder of the Négritude movement<U+0127> and Josephine Baker's performance in the 1935 film Princesse Tam Tam. As the first in Johns Hopkins's new series on the African Diaspora, this book offers new insight into the legacies of these exceptional artists and their global influence.--, Provided by Publisher

Introduction: Le tumulte noir (pt I): French imperial soundscapes and the New World -- "Adieu madras, adieu foulard": the Doudou's colonial complaint -- "To begin the Biguine": remembering Antillean musical time -- La Baker: Princesse Tam Tam and the Doudou's signature dilemma -- Negritude drum circles: the Tam-Tam and the beat -- Le poste colonial and technologies of the minor -- Conclusion: "Notes from the sound field."