We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,704,775.42 | Books Available: 749,360 | Members Online: 117

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras And America's Creole Soul (Conduct & Communications)

Blues for New Orleans Mardi Gras And America's Creole Soul - Conduct & Communications
Author: Roger, D. Abrahams, Nick Spitzer, John, F. Szwed

"Blues for New Orleans is a generous study of Mardi Gras, but it is also a creative intervention, a passionate explanation (and defense) of creolization, a cultural rescue operation. It is a furious, blues-tinged, erudite hymn to our greatest vernacular city. Read it and weep; read it and rejoice!"--Edward Hirsch, President, John Simon Gu... more »ggenheim Memorial Foundation There is no more powerful celebration of the happy gumbo of life in New Orleans than Mardi Gras. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the citizens of New Orleans regroup and some put down roots elsewhere, many people wonder what will become of one of the nation's most complex creole cultures. New Orleans emerged like Atlantis from under the sea, as the city in which some of the most important American vernacular arts took shape. Creativity fostered jazz music, made of old parts and put together in utterly new ways; architecture that commingled Norman rooflines, West African floor plans, and native materials of mud and moss; food that simmered African ingredients in French sauces with Native American delicacies. In Carnival, music is celebrated along the city's spiderweb grid of streets, as all classes and cultures gather for a festival that is organized and chaotic, individual and collective, accepted and licentious, sacred and profane. The authors, distinguished writers who have long engaged with pluralized forms of American culture, begin and end in New Orleans--the city that was, the city that is, and the city that will be--but traverse geographically to Mardi Gras in the Louisiana Parishes, to Carnival in the West Indies and beyond, to Rio, Buenos Aires, even Philadelphia and Albany. Mardi Gras, they argue, must be understood in terms of the Black Atlantic complex, demonstrating how the music, dance, and festive displays of Carnival in the Greater Caribbean follow the same patterns of performance through conflict, resistance, as well as open celebration. After the deluge and the finger pointing, how will Carnival be changed? Will the groups decamp to other Gulf Coast or Deep South locations? Or will they use the occasion to return to and express a revival of community life in New Orleans? Two things are certain: Katrina is sure to be satirized as villainess, bimbo, or symbol of mythological flood, and political leaders at all levels will undoubtedly be taken to task. The authors argue that the return of Mardi Gras will be a powerful symbol of the region's return to vitality and its ability to express and celebrate itself. Roger D. Abrahams is Hum Rosen Professor of Humanities Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author and editor of many books, including After Africa (with John F. Szwed), African Folktales: Traditional Stories of the Black World, and Everyday Life: A Poetics of Vernacular Practice, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Nick Spitzer is Professor of Folklore and Cultural Conservation at the University of New Orleans and host of NPR's American Routes. John F. Szwed is John M. Musser Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies at Yale University. Among his numerous books are So What: The Life of Miles Davis, Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra, and Crossovers: Essays on Race, Music, and American Culture, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Robert Farris Thompson is Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University. He is the author of Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy and Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas.

ISBN-13: 9780812239591
ISBN-10: 0812239598
Publication Date: 2/15/2006
Pages: 112
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Travel >> United States >> Regions >> South >> West South Central
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> Anthropology >> Cultural
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> Anthropology >> General
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> General
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> Sociology >> General

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras And America's Creole Soul (Conduct & Communications)

Loading...