Thomas P. Barker
Spatial Dialectics: Intimations of Freedom in Antebellum Slave Song
Barker, Thomas P.
Authors
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to explore how music provided the U.S. plantation-slaves with a space in which the hegemony of the White ruling class could be subverted, adapted, and resisted. Consistent with the beliefs of slave religion, which saw the material and the spiritual as part of an intrinsic unity, I identify two tendencies in slave song: freedom as material practice and freedom as the “aesthetic imagination.” I argue that the tensions between these two spheres provided a crucial intimation of a life without slavery.
Citation
Barker, T. P. (2015). Spatial Dialectics: Intimations of Freedom in Antebellum Slave Song. Journal of Black Studies, 46(4), 363-383. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934715574499
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Feb 2, 2015 |
Publication Date | May 1, 2015 |
Deposit Date | Feb 6, 2015 |
Publicly Available Date | May 10, 2016 |
Journal | Journal of Black Studies |
Print ISSN | 0021-9347 |
Electronic ISSN | 1552-4566 |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 46 |
Issue | 4 |
Pages | 363-383 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934715574499 |
Keywords | Music and resistance, Intimations of freedom, Spatial dialectics, Slave song, Spirituals slavery |
Files
Published Journal Article
(391 Kb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Copyright Statement
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search