Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines
Department
Music
Document Type
Book
Files
Description
This book begins with a simple question: Why haven't historians and musicologists been talking to one another?
Historians frequently look to all aspects of human activity, including music, in order to better understand the past. Musicologists inquire into the social, cultural, and historical contexts of musical works and musical practices to develop theories about the meanings of compositions and the significance of musical creation. Both disciplines examine how people represent their experiences. This collection of original essays, the first of its kind, argues that the conversation between scholars in the two fields can become richer and more mutually informing.
The volume features an eloquent personal essay by historian Lawrence W. Levine, whose work has inspired a whole generation of scholars working on African American music in American history. The first six essays address widely different aspects of musical culture and history ranging from women and popular song during the French Revolution to nineteenth-century music publishing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two additional essays by scholars outside of musicology and history represent a new kind of disciplinary bridging by using the methods of cultural studies to look at cross-dressing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera and blues responses to lynching in the New South. The last four essays offer models for collaborative, multidisciplinary research with a special emphasis on popular music.
Jeffrey H. Jackson, Memphis, Tennessee, is assistant professor of history at Rhodes College. He is the author of Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris. Stanley C. Pelkey, Portage, Michigan, is assistant professor of music at Western Michigan University. He is a member of the College Music Society, and his work has appeared in music-related periodicals.
Call number in WMU's library
ML3916 .M86 2005
ISBN
978-1578067626
Publication Date
2005
Publisher
University Press of Mississippi
City
Jackson
Disciplines
Music
Citation for published book
Jackson, Jeffrey H., and Stanley C. Pelkey. Music and History : Bridging the Disciplines / Edited by Jeffrey H. Jackson and Stanley C. Pelkey. 1st ed. 2005. Print.
Recommended Citation
Jackson, Jeffrey H. and Pelkey, Stanley C., "Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines" (2005). All Books and Monographs by WMU Authors. 623.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/books/623