Download PDF | Jonathan Holt Shannon - Performing al-Andalus _ music and nostalgia across the Mediterranean-Indiana University Press (2015).
254 Pages
Prelude
This book investigates the rhetorical uses of medieval Spain (al-Andalus) in contemporary Syria, Morocco, and Spain. Focusing on the performance of varieties of Andalusian music in these three contexts, I explore the ways musical performance contributes to the creation of senses of place, collective memory (and often amnesia), and hopes and desires for the future. In other words, it is an examination of the role of musical practices in promoting rhetorics of belonging and forms of nostalgia in the context of the Mediterranean and beyond. In the interest of reaching a wider audience, including students, scholars, and general readers curious about cultural politics in the contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean, I have avoided debates and certain details more appropriate for specialist publications.
Performing al-Andalus should be understood as an interpretive essay that aims to provoke as much as to resolve questions about belonging and collective memory in the Mediterranean. Exhaustive studies of the musical traditions of each of the locales I investigate already exist, and I direct interested readers to those fine volumes for more detail on performance practice, modes and rhythms, song forms, and lyrics. The research for this book was conducted in fits and starts over many years, including extended stays in Aleppo and Damascus, Syria; Fez, Rabat, Tangier, and Tétouan, Morocco; and Granada, Córdoba, and Madrid, Spain. All interviews were conducted in Arabic, Spanish, French, or English, when appropriate.
Acknowledgments
This work, so long in the making, would never have seen the light were it not for the excellent staff at Indiana University Press. I especially wish to thank Rebecca Tolen for her encouragement and patience throughout the project in the hopes that the final product was well worth the wait! Funds to support research in Syria, Morocco, and Spain were generously provided by awards from Fulbright-Hays (2003–2004), the PSC-CU N Y (2002, 2003), and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fund (2009). A sabbatical leave from Hunter College (2008–2009) allowed me to conduct research in Spain and Morocco and to begin outlining the project. My students and colleagues at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York provided opportunities for me to test some of the ideas in this book. I especially wish to thank the members of the Middle East Studies Faculty Research Seminar—Anna Akasoy, Yitzhak Berger, Alex Elinson, Karen Kern, Jillian Schwedler, and Chris Stone—for their comments on a draft of chapter 2.
I also thank the receptive audiences at the New York Academy of Sciences, Columbia University Ethnomusicology Center, Princeton University Department of Near Eastern Studies, Yale University Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, the College of New Jersey Department of Political Science, and various conferences here and there for offering suggestions and constructive criticism at various waypoints along this voyage. I wish to thank “The al-Andalus Road Show”—Carl Davila, Jonathan Glasser, Brian Karl, and Dwight Reynolds. Their insightful and humbling scholarship and generous support over the years have sus-tained this project when I thought it not worth pursuing (especially after reading their works!). Thanks, guys.
The late María Rosa Menocal encouraged me in the project through her inspiring and inspired writings on things Andalusian and offered kind advice on how to go forward despite the challenges of working in several languages and in several locales. A special shukran to my many friends and teachers in Syria, most suffering from the aftermath of the violence that has shaken Syria for so many months beginning in March 2011: ‘Abd al-Raouf ‘Adwan, Ghassan ‘Amouri, Muhammad Qadri Dalal, Hala al-Faisal, Muhammad Hamadiyeh, ‘Abd al-Halim Hariri, Nouri Iskandar, Zuhayr Minini, the late Sabri Moudallal, ‘Abd al-Fattah Qala‘hji, Muhammad Qassas, Hussein Sabsaby, Fadil al-Siba’i, and the late ‘Abd al-Fattah Sukkar, who early on taught me how to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to things musical. In Morocco I thank my many friends, teachers, and associates, including Anas al-‘Attar, ‘Abd al-Fattah Bennis, ‘Abd al-Fattah Benmusa, Ahmed El-Khaligh, Omar Metioui, ‘Abd al-Malik al-Shami, ‘Abd al-Salam al-Shami, Omar al-Shami, Radouane al-Shami, Yunis alShami, al-Hajj Ahmad Shiki, and Ahmed Zaytouni, among others, for facilitating much of the research. Deborah Kapchan was an interlocutor at the early stages of the research in Morocco and Spain, offering me numerous insights into Moroccan culture, including valuable connections.
I thank her for her generosity. In Spain, I wish to thank Slimane Baali, Dar Ziryab, the Granada International Festival of Music and Dance, the Casa-Museo Federico García Lorca, the Escuela de Estudios Árabes in Granada, and the Centro de Documentación Musical de Andalucía, as well as, once more, the indefatigable Dwight Reynolds, whose intimate knowledge of Granada allowed me to move through that charged lieu de mémoire more quickly than I might have otherwise, as well as to enjoy great tapas. Above all I wish to thank the close friends and family who have supported me in many ways over the many years in which I researched and wrote this text. Some of my earliest ideas for the book were developed in conversation with the late Brian Stross of the University of Texas, a valued friend and colleague whose insights, warmth, humor, and inspiring playlists will be sorely missed. My mother, Linda Shannon-Rugel,bore the heaviness of the loss of her daughter and still managed to ask me about how “the book” was coming along.
I remember my late sister, Pamela Kay Shannon, whom fate took from us too soon. She encouraged me to pursue the dream of working in three different countries and languages despite the challenges, and I wish she were here to see the result. My brother, Chris Shannon, and stepfather, Herman Rugel, have been solid sources of support over the years in more ways than they can know. Lots of love to all of them. Last but never least, I thank my son, Nathaniel “Nadim” Kapchan Shannon, for his patience with a father who was always either doing research, writing, playing music, or riding his bicycle (though not usually at the same time). May he grow to join me in at least some of these pursuits. Patricia Winter, through her outsized patience, enduring love, generosity of spirit, and unending kindness, allowed me the physical and emotional space to write this book, the inspiration to continue when I didn’t believe in myself, and enough Nespresso to finish the job. To her I give infinite thanks and all my love.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق