RWS: A Partial Reading List

Required Texts:

Farah Griffin, Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During WWII

Julian Henriques, Sonic Bodies: Reggae Sound Systems, Performance Techniques, and Ways of Knowing

Tsitsi Jaji, Africa In Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity

Meta DuEwa Jones, The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word

Emily Lordi, Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature

Shana Redmond, Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora

Francesca T. Royster, Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era

Alexandra T. Vazquez, Listening In Detail: Performances of Cuban Music

Alex Weheliye, Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity 

Kevin Young, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness

Tsitsi Jaji discusses Africa in Stereo on Mark Anthony Neal's Left of Black

Welcome.

This blog is a companion to our "Race,Writing, Sound" graduate course, being offered at the University of Pittsburgh in Spring 2016 by Dr. Imani D. Owens. We will draw upon a wide variety of literary and sonic sources to ask questions about race and the politics of listening in the 20th century.  Pairing recent works in critical sound studies with poetry, fiction, liner notes and sonic texts, we will consider writing, sound, and performance as interfacing mediums, not merely defined by influence but by mutual aesthetic and conceptual transformation. Our lens is decidedly transnational: we chart the ways that music travels, buoyed by historical events, social movements, and developments in sound technology.  We will consider literary engagement with genres such as blues, jazz, spirituals, soul, hip hop, reggae, dub, afro-Cuban, and West African music. Theories of translation, improvisation, and black Atlantic exchange will inform our analysis of race, writing, and sound.

This blog will serve as a space to post our reflections on the assigned readings--or to sound off on any matters related to the themes above. Looking forward to the journey.