Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain

ISBN-13: 9781138265363 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 270 str.

Michael Pickering

Opis

Blackface minstrelsy is associated particularly with popular culture in the United States and Britain, though it was also known in other Anglophone countries such as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and was even adopted in colonial and postcolonial contexts such as Egypt and West Africa. Despite the continual two-way flow of performers, troupes and companies across the Atlantic, there is little in Britain to match the scholarship of blackface studies in the States. This book concentrates on the distinctively British trajectory of minstrelsy.

Recenzje

’... this is a comprehensive and penetrating study of an unjustly forgotten subject.’ H-Net Review ’This is a major study, providing a complex analysis of its subject, which will stimulate and engage the reader, whether or not they agree with every argument put forward. It deserves to be widely read.’ Folk Music Journal ’... deeply impressive in its willingness to confront uncomfortable topics with controlled ambivalence and thoughtful analysis.’ Media History ’... a scholarly effort, and those with a special interest will find much to enjoy here. Libraries should order it for their music department.’ The Delian ’Blackfaced Minstrelsy in Britain reverses the commonly-held belief that blackface minstrelsy was an exclusively North-American phenomenon and that Britain merely imitated its legacy to instead focus on the cultural significance of British minstrel shows. In this way, the author shifts attention away from the United States to highlight the historical development of blackface minstrelsy in Britain in the nineteenth and ealy twentieth centuries.’ Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World '... Pickering provides a fascinating and multifaceted overview of blackface minstrelsy in Britain... an enlightening and very readable history of minstrelsy in Britain.' Journal of Popular Music

Spis treści

Contents: Preface; Mock blacks; Metropolitan minstrelsy; Everyday Ethiopians; British masks; Racial mockery; Black clowns; Early ragtime; Blackface media; Minstrelsy's legacy; Select bibliography; Index.

O autorze

Michael Pickering is Professor of Media and Cultural Analysis at Loughborough University, UK.