Sonic Borderscapes: Popular Music, Pirate Radio, and Belonging in Black British Writing in the 1990s
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Jopi Nyman
Abstract
This article addresses the role of music and broadcast radio as elements in the construction of borderscapes, spaces of cultural construction and identity negotiation, in three black British novels published in the 1990 s, namely Diran Adebayo’s Some Kind of Black (1996), Karline Smith’s Moss Side Massive (1994/1998), and Courttia Newland’s Society Within (1999/2000). The article argues that the novels use black popular music and pirate (community) radio stations as means of constructing black identities, belonging, and communities in the conditions of the borderscape where hegemonic and resistant identifications come into contact with each other. Furthermore, the borderscape constructed can be seen as a sonic borderscape owing to the significant role allotted to music and radio in the novels. While music plays a particularly significant role at the level of the individual and contributes to the making of a distinct identity and difference, their becoming, the specific function given to community radio in these novels is to construct communities of belonging.1
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Trans*textuality in William Shakespeare’s Othello: Italian, West African, and English Encounters
- Ways of Witnessing: Journalism vs. Fiction in The Quiet American and El pintor de batallas
- Art, Nature and the Negotiation of Memory in J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country
- Sonic Borderscapes: Popular Music, Pirate Radio, and Belonging in Black British Writing in the 1990s
- The Rise of the Fragmentary Essay-Novel: Towards a Poetics and Contextualization of an Emerging Hybrid Genre in the Digital Age
- Transmodern Motion or the Rhizomatic Updated in In a Strange Room, “Take me to Church” and Babel
- Reviews
- Monika Wegmann. Language in Space: The Cartographic Representation of Dialects. Travaux de Linguistique et de Philologie. Strasbourg: Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie, 2017, xvi + 318 pp., 1 table, 3 figures, 50 maps, € 45.00.
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- Juanita Feros Ruys. Demons in the Middle Ages. Past Imperfect. Kalamazoo, MI/Bradford: ARC Humanities Press, 2017, ix + 121 p., 5 figures, $ 14.95.
- Hans Ulrich Seeber. Globalisierung, Utopie und Literatur: Von Thomas Morus (1516) bis Darcy Ribeiro (1982). Politica et Ars: Interdisziplinäre Studien zur politischen Ideen- und Kulturgeschichte 27. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2017, 266 pp., € 34.90.
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- Philipp Löffler (ed.). Reading the Canon: Literary History in the 21stCentury. American Studies – A Monograph Series 281. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017, 458 pp., € 58.00.
- Julia Straub (ed.). Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Handbooks of English and American Studies 3. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2016, x + 622 pp., 25 illustr., € 199.95/£ 182.00/$ 280.00.
- Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (eds.). The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Routledge Literature Companions. London/New York: Routledge, 2017, xvi + 489 pp., 30 illustr., 2 tables, £ 185.00.
- Alexa Weik von Mossner. Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative. Cognitive Approaches to Culture. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2017, 271 pp., $34.95.
- Aurélie Choné, Isabelle Hajek and Philippe Hamman (eds.). Guide des Humanités environnementales:Environnement et société. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2016, 630 pp., € 38.00. Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino (eds.).Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene. London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017, xvii + 373 pp., 7 illustr., £ 90.00/$ 135.00.
- Books Received
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Trans*textuality in William Shakespeare’s Othello: Italian, West African, and English Encounters
- Ways of Witnessing: Journalism vs. Fiction in The Quiet American and El pintor de batallas
- Art, Nature and the Negotiation of Memory in J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country
- Sonic Borderscapes: Popular Music, Pirate Radio, and Belonging in Black British Writing in the 1990s
- The Rise of the Fragmentary Essay-Novel: Towards a Poetics and Contextualization of an Emerging Hybrid Genre in the Digital Age
- Transmodern Motion or the Rhizomatic Updated in In a Strange Room, “Take me to Church” and Babel
- Reviews
- Monika Wegmann. Language in Space: The Cartographic Representation of Dialects. Travaux de Linguistique et de Philologie. Strasbourg: Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie, 2017, xvi + 318 pp., 1 table, 3 figures, 50 maps, € 45.00.
- Tom Birkett and Kirsty March-Lyons (eds.). Translating Early Medieval Poetry: Transformation, Reception, Interpretation. Medievalism 11. Cambridge: Brewer, 2017, ix + 240 pp., £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
- Richard Sowerby. Angels in Early Medieval England. Oxford Theology & Religion Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xv + 261 pp., 12 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Juanita Feros Ruys. Demons in the Middle Ages. Past Imperfect. Kalamazoo, MI/Bradford: ARC Humanities Press, 2017, ix + 121 p., 5 figures, $ 14.95.
- Hans Ulrich Seeber. Globalisierung, Utopie und Literatur: Von Thomas Morus (1516) bis Darcy Ribeiro (1982). Politica et Ars: Interdisziplinäre Studien zur politischen Ideen- und Kulturgeschichte 27. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2017, 266 pp., € 34.90.
- Martin Middeke and Christoph Reinfandt (eds.).Theory Matters: The Place of Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies Today. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, xii + 374 pp., £ 89.99.
- Philipp Löffler (ed.). Reading the Canon: Literary History in the 21stCentury. American Studies – A Monograph Series 281. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017, 458 pp., € 58.00.
- Julia Straub (ed.). Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Handbooks of English and American Studies 3. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2016, x + 622 pp., 25 illustr., € 199.95/£ 182.00/$ 280.00.
- Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (eds.). The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Routledge Literature Companions. London/New York: Routledge, 2017, xvi + 489 pp., 30 illustr., 2 tables, £ 185.00.
- Alexa Weik von Mossner. Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative. Cognitive Approaches to Culture. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2017, 271 pp., $34.95.
- Aurélie Choné, Isabelle Hajek and Philippe Hamman (eds.). Guide des Humanités environnementales:Environnement et société. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2016, 630 pp., € 38.00. Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino (eds.).Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene. London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017, xvii + 373 pp., 7 illustr., £ 90.00/$ 135.00.
- Books Received
