Details

The Groovology of White Affect

Boeremusiek and the Enregisterment of Race in South Africa

von: Willemien Froneman
117,69 €
Verlag:	Palgrave Macmillan
Format:	PDF
Veröffentl.:	13.05.2024
ISBN/EAN:	9783031401435
Sprache:	englisch

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Beschreibungen

Titelbeschreibung

The Groovology of White Affect theorizes white aesthetics and race formation in South Africa from a position immersed in the sonic. Mining boeremusiek’s “heart-speech” across two centuries of reception, the book offers a theory of race formation steeped in the music’s vernacular language and practices, and in the context of South Africa's race ideologies. The book’s chapters identifys and explore boeremusiek's affective modalities: embarrassment, blackface, epiphany, and disavowal. The book then theorizes indexicality, music, affect and whiteness as three interlinked ontologies. When considered together, the book argues, boeremusiek’s modalities outline the parameters of a corrupted white aesthetic faculty that help explain how whiteness perpetuates itself in the present day. Racism is thereby defined not primarily as a matter of prejudice, but as a matter of (conditional) pleasure and (pathological) taste.

The Groovology of White Affect articulates a sound studies from the South; it is an attempt to write in a South Africa-centered way—amidst the collapse of colonial disciplines and a resulting disciplinary and methodological catholicism—for a broad, international audience interested in the affective constitution of race and racism.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Boeremusiek’s “Heart-Speech”.- 2. The Riches of Embarrassment.- 3. Blackfaced Boeremusiek and the Racial Grotesque.- 4. Epiphanies of Postcolonial Radiance.- 5. Disavowal and the Perverted Mind of Apartheid.- 6. The Groovology of White Affect.

Autorenportrait

Willemien Froneman is an interdisciplinary music scholar and holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and Stellenbosch. Her interests extend from American music experimentalism to avant-gardism and modernity in the Global South. Much of her published research is about whiteness and affect as these concerns relate to popular music vernaculars in South Africa. As a former editor of South African Music Studies, she has worked towards finding new forms of decolonial academic publishing that renders visible the realities of South African institutions and scholarly concerns. She lives and works in South Africa.

Back cover copy

The Groovology of White Affect theorizes white aesthetics and race formation in South Africa from a position immersed in the sonic. Mining boeremusiek’s “heart-speech” across two centuries of reception, the book offers a theory of race formation steeped in the music’s vernacular language and practices, and in the context of South Africa's race ideologies. The book’s chapters identifys and explore boeremusiek's affective modalities: embarrassment, blackface, epiphany, and disavowal. The book then theorizes indexicality, music, affect and whiteness as three interlinked ontologies. When considered together, the book argues, boeremusiek’s modalities outline the parameters of a corrupted white aesthetic faculty that help explain how whiteness perpetuates itself in the present day. Racism is thereby defined not primarily as a matter of prejudice, but as a matter of (conditional) pleasure and (pathological) taste.The Groovology of White Affect articulates a sound studies from the South; it is an attempt to write in a South Africa-centered way - amidst the collapse of colonial disciplines and a resulting disciplinary and methodological catholicism - for a broad, international audience interested in the affective constitution of race and racism.

Sonderbeitrag

Offers the first academic study of the South African folk music tradition of Boeremusiek Develops a music-based theory of race and studies how whiteness is negotiated sonically Articulates a decolonial sound studies from the perspective of the Global South

Unpublished endorsement

“In the growing body of literature examining music’s racialized structures, Willemien Froneman’s The Groovology of White Affect challenges us to rethink our core beliefs about how music intersects with race, as well as about race itself. Froneman’s keen analysis of this Afrikaans folk genre unpacks the racial desires, the white pleasure, at its core, while describing, from a South African perspective, that the white racism behind the music is not what it was previously thought to be. A must read, not only for those familiar with the genre, but for all who wish to confront musical racism to make music more welcoming for all.” (Philip Ewell, Professor of Music Theory, Hunter College, Music Department, New York, US)

“This book is an example of ‘New South African’ scholarship of the very best kind. It is the first academic study of boeremusiek, and it invitingly opens significant new channels for our understanding of white racism, both locally and internationally.” (Christopher Ballantine University of University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

 “Out of the convenient closet of academic avoidance comes Willemien Froneman’s bold groovological theorization of white musical pleasure and boeremusiek’s racialized technologies of affect. The result is a wonderful contribution to South African music history, to engaged theories of whiteness and racial formation, and to contemporary research on indexicalities of language and musical practice.” (Steven Feld, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Music, University of New Mexico; New Mexico, US)