Phonographic Memories

Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8135-9660-0
Verlag: Rutgers University Press

Buch, Englisch, 250 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 476 g

Reihe: Critical Caribbean Studies

Phonographic Memories is the first book to perform a sustained analysis of the narrative and thematic influence of Caribbean popular music on the Caribbean novel. Tracing a region-wide attention to the deep connections between music and memory in the work of Lawrence Scott, Oscar Hijuelos, Colin Channer, Daniel Maximin, and Ramabai Espinet, Njelle Hamilton tunes in to each novel's soundtrack while considering the broader listening cultures that sustain collective memory and situate Caribbean subjects in specific localities. These “musical fictions” depict Caribbean people turning to calypso, bolero, reggae, gwoka, and dub to record, retrieve, and replay personal and cultural memories. Offering a fresh perspective on musical nationalism and nostalgic memory in the era of globalization, Phonographic Memories affirms the continued importance of Caribbean music in providing contemporary novelists ethical narrative models for sounding marginalized memories and voices.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hamilton, Njelle W

Über Autor(innen)

Njelle W. Hamilton is an assistant professor in the departments of English and African-American and African studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.