Cornbread and Cuchifritos

Wilfried Raussert, Michelle Habell-Pallán (Eds.)

Cornbread and Cuchifritos. Ethnic Identity Politics, Transnationalization, and Transculturation in American Urban Popular Music

ISBN 978-3-86821-265-5, 292 S., kt., € 29,50 (2011)

(IAS - Inter-American Studies / Estudios Interamericanos, Bd. 2)

With a nod to the recent shift toward postnational and postnationalistic studies of the Americas the editors consider the study of popular music as paradigmatic for the change from purely national to transnational American Studies. After all, sounds travel fast, cross national and cultural boundaries constantly, and feed on cultural exchange both in processes of production and reception. Within the approach of tracing the routes of music and music’s impact on identity formation the editors take the popularity of U.S. American popular music more or less for granted. The volume aims to explore music’s impact on identity politics within the Americas and beyond, music’s interconnectedness to the emergence of fluid new ethnicities in urban contexts and its historical links to processes of intercultural exchange. One major focus is on the ethnic impact of U.S. American popular music with a specific emphasis on Latino/a influences both on music within the United States and on the migration of sounds and music genres across national borders. Hence this collection of essays aims at differentiating and rewriting existing histories of the emergence of U.S. American popular music, which focus primarily on intercultural exchange between European and African as well as African American forms, by exploring the yet absent Latino/a presence within these musical histories. At the same time, the compilation intends to counter concepts of so-called world music, a label often used to homogenize fusion forms of music in times of globalization, by emphasizing elements of ethnic as well as aesthetic differences in U.S. American popular music and its global/local variations.

Buchvorschau / Inhaltsverzeichnis (pdf)

Pressestimme

"The volume self-consciously departs from a Euro-U.S.-centric perspective, which manifests on different levels- foremost in the theoretical frame since key concepts emanate from the prominent transnational turn in U.S. American Studies. Overall, the articles offer diverse, highly illustrative and rewarding perspectives on transnational elements and genre in popular music, mainly in the Uni."

Stephanie Siewert, Amerikastudien / American Studies 60.4 (2015)