Time and Memory in Reggae Music: The Politics of Hope (Music and Society) - Hardcover

Daynes, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719076218 ISBN 13: 9780719076213

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2010

Synopsis

On the basis of a body of reggae songs from the 1970s and late 1990s, this book offers a sociological analysis of memory, hope and redemption in reggae music. From Dennis Brown to Sizzla, the way in which reggae music constructs a musical, religious and socio-political memory in rupture with dominant models is vividly illustrated by the lyrics themselves. How is the past remembered in the present? How does remembering the past allow for imagining the future? How does collective memory participate into the historical grounding of collective identity? What is the relationship between tradition and revolution, between the recollection of the past and the imagination of the future, between passivity and action? Ultimately, this case study of "memory at work" opens up on a theoretical problem: the conceptualization of time and its relationship with memory.

About this title

About the Author

Sarah Daynes is Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719076218
• ISBN 13: 9780719076213
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256