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6%OFFKaren Linn - That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture - 9780252064333 - V9780252064333
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That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture

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Description for That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture Paperback. Series: Music in American Life. Num Pages: 208 pages. BIC Classification: 1KBB; AVRL; JFCA. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 5817 x 3887 x 15. Weight in Grams: 315.

Long a symbol of American culture, the banjo actually originated in Africa before European-Americans adopted it. Karen Linn shows how the banjo--despite design innovations and several modernizing agendas--has failed to escape its image as a "half-barbaric" instrument symbolic of antimodernism and sentimentalism. 

Caught in the morass of American racial attitudes and often used to express ambivalence toward modern industrial society, the banjo stood in opposition to the "official" values of rationalism, modernism, and belief in the beneficence of material progress. Linn uses popular literature, visual arts, advertisements, film, performance practices, instrument construction and decoration, and song lyrics to illustrate how notions ... Read more

Linn also traces the instrument from its African origins through the 1980s, alternating between themes of urban modernization and rural nostalgia. She examines the banjo fad of bourgeois Northerners during the late nineteenth century; the African-American banjo tradition and the commercially popular cultural image of the southern black banjo player; the banjo's use in ragtime and early jazz; and the image of the white Southerner and mountaineer as banjo player.

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Product Details

Format
Paperback
Publication date
1994
Publisher
University of Illinois Press United States
Number of pages
208
Condition
New
Series
Music in American Life
Number of Pages
208
Place of Publication
Baltimore, United States
ISBN
9780252064333
SKU
V9780252064333
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Karen Linn
Karen Linn is an archivist in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. She has published articles in North Carolina Folklore Journal and American Music.

Reviews for That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture
"Well written and well researched; Linn has amassed an impressive amount of data, and she uses it effectively. . . . This is an excellent book that should be of interest to not only historians, folklorists, and musicologists but also the banjo player and the general reader."
Charlie Seemann, Journal of Southern History "An absolute must read for anyone interested in the ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture


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