Timothy J. Cooley (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042362
- eISBN:
- 9780252051203
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042362.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This collection of essays is driven by the proposition that environmental and cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. The authors are unified by the influence of the pioneering work of Jeff ...
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This collection of essays is driven by the proposition that environmental and cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. The authors are unified by the influence of the pioneering work of Jeff Todd Titon in developing broadly ecological approaches to folklore, ethnomusicology, and sustainability. These approaches lead to advocacy and activism. Building on and responding to Titon's work, the authors call for profoundly integrated efforts to better understand sustainability as a challenge that encompasses all living beings and ecological systems, including human cultural systems. While many of the chapters address musicking and ecomusicology, others focus on filmmaking, folklore, digital media, philosophy, and photography. Organized into five parts, Part 1 establishes a theoretical foundation and suggests methods for approaching the daunting issues of sustainability, resilience, and adaptive management. Part 2 offers five case studies interpreting widely divergent ways that humans are grappling with ecological and environmental challenges by engaging in expressive culture. Part 3 illustrates the role of media in sustainable cultural practices. Part 4 asks how human vocal expression may be central to human self-realization and cultural survival with case studies ranging from the digital transmission of Torah chanting traditions to Russian laments. Part 5 embraces Titon's highly influential work establishing and promoting applied ethnomusicology, and speaks directly to the themes of advocacy and activism.Less
This collection of essays is driven by the proposition that environmental and cultural sustainability are inextricably linked. The authors are unified by the influence of the pioneering work of Jeff Todd Titon in developing broadly ecological approaches to folklore, ethnomusicology, and sustainability. These approaches lead to advocacy and activism. Building on and responding to Titon's work, the authors call for profoundly integrated efforts to better understand sustainability as a challenge that encompasses all living beings and ecological systems, including human cultural systems. While many of the chapters address musicking and ecomusicology, others focus on filmmaking, folklore, digital media, philosophy, and photography. Organized into five parts, Part 1 establishes a theoretical foundation and suggests methods for approaching the daunting issues of sustainability, resilience, and adaptive management. Part 2 offers five case studies interpreting widely divergent ways that humans are grappling with ecological and environmental challenges by engaging in expressive culture. Part 3 illustrates the role of media in sustainable cultural practices. Part 4 asks how human vocal expression may be central to human self-realization and cultural survival with case studies ranging from the digital transmission of Torah chanting traditions to Russian laments. Part 5 embraces Titon's highly influential work establishing and promoting applied ethnomusicology, and speaks directly to the themes of advocacy and activism.
Jake Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042515
- eISBN:
- 9780252051364
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042515.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
American musical theater is often dismissed as frivolous or kitschy entertainment. But what if musicals actually mattered a great deal? What if perhaps the most innocuous musical genre in America ...
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American musical theater is often dismissed as frivolous or kitschy entertainment. But what if musicals actually mattered a great deal? What if perhaps the most innocuous musical genre in America actually defined the practices of Mormonism--America’s fastest-growing religion? Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging in America is an interdisciplinary study of voice, popular music, and American religion that analyzes the unexpected yet dynamic relationship between two of America’s most iconic institutions, Mormonism and American musical theater. This book argues that Mormonism and early American musical theater were cut from the same ideological cloth--formed in the early nineteenth century out of Jacksonian principles of self-fashioning, white supremacy, and broader understandings of the democratic principles of vicariousness. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Mormons gravitated toward musicals as a common ideological platform, using musicals not only to practice a theology of voice but also to transition from outlier polygamist sect to become by the mid-twentieth century emblems of white, middle-class respectability in America. In an effort to become gods themselves, Mormons use the musical stage to practice transforming into someone they are not, modeling closely the theatrical qualities of Jesus and other spiritual leaders in Mormon mythology. Thus, learning to vicariously voice another person on the musical stage actually draws the faithful closer to godliness. Looking outward from the shared ideological roots of Mormonism and musical theater, this book offers a compelling study of how the ways Americans sound determine the paths of their belonging.Less
American musical theater is often dismissed as frivolous or kitschy entertainment. But what if musicals actually mattered a great deal? What if perhaps the most innocuous musical genre in America actually defined the practices of Mormonism--America’s fastest-growing religion? Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging in America is an interdisciplinary study of voice, popular music, and American religion that analyzes the unexpected yet dynamic relationship between two of America’s most iconic institutions, Mormonism and American musical theater. This book argues that Mormonism and early American musical theater were cut from the same ideological cloth--formed in the early nineteenth century out of Jacksonian principles of self-fashioning, white supremacy, and broader understandings of the democratic principles of vicariousness. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Mormons gravitated toward musicals as a common ideological platform, using musicals not only to practice a theology of voice but also to transition from outlier polygamist sect to become by the mid-twentieth century emblems of white, middle-class respectability in America. In an effort to become gods themselves, Mormons use the musical stage to practice transforming into someone they are not, modeling closely the theatrical qualities of Jesus and other spiritual leaders in Mormon mythology. Thus, learning to vicariously voice another person on the musical stage actually draws the faithful closer to godliness. Looking outward from the shared ideological roots of Mormonism and musical theater, this book offers a compelling study of how the ways Americans sound determine the paths of their belonging.
