Destructive Desires: Rhythm and Blues Culture and the Politics of Racial Equality

Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9788-0358-9
Verlag: Rutgers University Press

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 363 g

Despite rhythm and blues culture's undeniable role in molding, reflecting, and reshaping black cultural production, consciousness, and politics, it has yet to receive the serious scholarly examination it deserves. Destructive Desires corrects this omission by analyzing how post-Civil Rights era rhythm and blues culture articulates competing and conflicting political, social, familial, and economic desires within and for African American communities. As an important form of black cultural production, rhythm and blues music helps us to understand black political and cultural desires and longings in light of neo-liberalism's increased codification in America's racial politics and policies since the 1970s. Robert J. Patterson provides a thorough analysis of four artists—Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Adina Howard, Whitney Houston, and Toni Braxton—to examine black cultural longings by demonstrating how our reading of specific moments in their lives, careers, and performances serve as metacommentaries for broader issues in black culture and politics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Patterson, Robert J.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musiktheorie, Musikästhetik, Kompositionslehre
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Rock & Pop, Blues, Soul

Über Autor(innen)

Robert J. Patterson is an associate professor of African American studies and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is a coeditor of The Psychic Hold of Slavery: Legacies in American Expressive Culture (Rutgers University Press) and author of Exodus Politics: Civil Rights and Leadership in African American Literature and Culture.