The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (Postmillennial Pop (17)) PDF
Preview The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (Postmillennial Pop (17))
The Sonic Color Line POSTMILLENNIAL POP General Editors: Karen Tongson and Henry Jenkins Puro Arte: Filipinos on the Stages of Empire Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries Derek Johnson Your Ad Here: Th e Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing Michael Serazio Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities Mark Anthony Neal From Bombay to Bollywood: Th e Making of a Global Media Industry Aswin Punathambekar A Race So Diff erent: Performance and Law in Asian America Joshua Takano Chambers- Letson Surveillance Cinema Catherine Zimmer Modernity’s Ear: Listening to Race and Gender in World Music Roshanak Keshti Th e New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics Ramzi Fawaz Restricted Access: Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation Elizabeth Ellcessor Th e Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening Jennifer Lynn Stoever The Sonic Color Line Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening Jennifer Lynn Stoever NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York www.nyupress.org © 2016 by New York University All rights reserved References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. ISBN: 978-1-4798-9043-9 (hardback) ISBN: 978-1-4798-8934-1 (paperback) For Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data, please contact the Library of Congress. New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Also available as an ebook A book in the American Literatures Initiative (ALI), a collaborative publish- ing project of NYU Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia Press. Th e Initiative is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more infor- mation, please visit www.americanliteratures.org. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Th e Sonic Color Line and the Listening Ear 1 1. Th e Word, the Sound, and the Listening Ear: Listening to the Sonic Color Line in Frederick Douglass’s 1845 Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s 1861 Incidents 29 2. Performing the Sonic Color Line in the Antebellum North: Th e Swedish Nightingale and the Black Swan 78 3. Preserving “Quare Sounds,” Conserving the “Dark Past”: Th e Jubilee Singers and Charles Chesnutt Reconstruct the Sonic Color Line 132 4. “A Voice to Match All Th at”: Lead Belly, Richard Wright, and Lynching’s Soundtrack 180 5. Broadcasting Race: Lena Horne, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Ann Petry 229 Aft erword 277 Notes 281 Index 323 About the Author 331 v For my grandma Maryanne (1923– 2001), whose lovingly gruff , crumpled- paper- bag voice still carries me. For my dad, Jeff (1948– 2011), who fi rst taught me how to listen, and whose brown Koss KO/747 headphones rest right next to my stereo. For my son, Martin, who arrived amidst the writing of this book. You teach me to listen anew while letting me think I am teaching you. Your voice will always be my favorite sound. I love you more! Infi nity! Acknowledgments “Can you sing out in the pouring rain? / Can you sing out, can you sing out?” — Fishbone, “Pouring Rain” In summer 2015, I was honored to thank Norwood Fisher and Angelo Moore of Fishbone in person for being my fi rst, funkiest, and fi ercest critical race theorists. Only because music is so very powerful do people create mechanisms like the sonic color line to contain it. To my RUSD English teachers Kathy Rossi, Keith Lloyd, Katie Mackey, and Richard McNeil, who taught us public school kids how to think and write with a love and rigor that turned many of us toward futures we thought far beyond our reach. Th ank you to art teachers Louis Fox and Italo DiMarco, for showing me to myself. I have boundless love for my Riverside home folks: George Campos, Kim Earhart, Cara Cardinale Fidler, Kelly Herrera, Nova Punongbayan, Rodrigo Ramos, Joe Spagna, and especially my dearest familia— Julia Martinez, Sarah Parry, Karin Ribaudo, Jeff Ribaudo, Alison Sumner, Maria Unzueta- Hernandez, and last but certainly not least, Karen Tongson. Womb to tomb, birth to earth. Th ank you to Juan and Alice and the Contreras- Martinez families, who helped raise me to be the woman I am today. Th e generosity and personal example of the Honorable Joe Her- nandez II and Gloria Lopez sustained me through graduate school. Melissa Contreras- McGavin and Bradley McGavin, you are the wind beneath my wings. I was fortunate to have a top- notch, aff ordable undergraduate educa- tion at UC Riverside. I fi rst “heard” literature in Katherine Kinney’s class; I still dream of delivering readings as on point as hers. I also benefi tted from the brilliance and generosity of Emory Eliot—g one too soon— Carlos Cortés, Jennifer Doyle, John Ganim, George Haggerty, Tiff any ix
The list of books you might like
