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Synopsis: In any age and any given society, cultural practices reflect the material circumstances of people's everyday lives. According to Joel Dinerstein, it was no different in America between the two World Wars-an era sometimes known as the "machine age"-when innovative forms of music and dance helped a newly urbanized population cope with the increased mechanization of modern life. Grand spectacles such as the Ziegfeld Follies and the movies of Busby Berkeley captured the American ethos of mass production, with chorus girls as the cogs of these fast, flowing pleasure vehicles.
Yet it was African American culture, Dinerstein argues, that ultimately provided the means of aesthetic adaptation to the accelerated tempo of modernity. Drawing on a legacy of engagement with and resistance to technological change, with deep roots in West African dance and music, black artists developed new cultural forms that sought to humanize machines. In "The Ballad of John Henry," the epic toast "Shine," and countless blues songs, African Americans first addressed the challenge of industrialization. Jazz musicians drew on the symbol of the train within this tradition to create a set of train-derived aural motifs and rhythms, harnessing mechanical power to cultural forms. Tap dance and the lindy hop brought machine aesthetics to the human body, while the new rhythm section of big band swing mimicked the industrial soundscape of northern cities. In Dinerstein's view, the capacity of these artistic innovations to replicate the inherent qualities of the machine-speed, power, repetition, flow, precision-helps explain both their enormous popularity and social function in American life.
From the Publisher: An innovative study of the influence of black popular culture on modern American life.
Title: Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology,...
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Publication Date: 2003
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: very good
Book Description paperback. Condition: Good. Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD PAPERBACK Standard-sized. Seller Inventory # M1558493832Z3
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.45. Seller Inventory # G1558493832I3N10
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Seller Inventory # 000799
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Book Description 2003. Black American Studies. University of Massachusetts Press. 415p., fine paperback. Seller Inventory # -816236191
Book Description 2003. Black American Studies. University of Massachusetts Press. 415p., fine paperback. Seller Inventory # 678930933