Popular music has long understood that human rights, if attainable at all, involve a struggle without end. The right to imagine an individual will, the right to some form of self-determination and the right to self-legislation have long been at the forefront of popular music's approach to human rights. At a time of such uncertainty and confusion, with human rights currently being violated all over the world, a new and sustained examination of cultural responses to such issues is warranted. In this respect music, which is always produced in a social context, is an extremely useful medium; in its immediacy music has a potency of expression whose reach is long and wide. Contributors to this significant volume cover artists and topics such as Billy Bragg, punk, Fun-da-Mental, Willie King and the Liberators, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the Anti-Death Penalty movement, benefit concerts, benefit albums, Gil Scott-Heron, Bruce Springsteen, Wounded Knee and Native American political resistance, Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, as well as human rights in relation to feminism. A second volume covers World Music.
Contents: Foreword; Introduction; More relevance than spotlight and applause: Billy Bragg in the British folk tradition, Kieran Cashell; 'Know your rights': punk rock, globalization and human rights, Kevin C. Dunn; Unlocking the silence: Tori Amos, sexual violence and affect, Deborah Finding; Pantomime paranoia in London or, 'look out he's behind you!', John Hutnyk; The Blues, trauma, and public memory: Willie King and the Liberators, Stephen A. King; The aesthetic dimension: cultural politics, human rights, and Hedwig, Stefan Mattessich; The evolution of the political benefit rock album, Neil Nehring; Which music for which catastrophe? The functions of popular music 21st century benefit concerts, Sam O'Connell; From midnight music to civil rights, from bluesology to human rights: Gil Scott-Heron, American Griot, Ian Peddie; Plight of the Redman: XIT, Red power, and the refashioning of American Indian ethnicity, Christopher A. Scales; 'The country we carry in our hearts is waiting': Bruce Springsteen, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the search for human rights in America, David Thurmaier; The vision of possibility: popular music, women and human rights, Sheila Whiteley; Bibliography; Discography; Index.
Ian Peddie has taught at Florida Gulf Coast University, the University of Sydney, and West Texas A&M University. His books include The Resisting Muse: Popular Music and Social Protest (Ashgate, 2006) and a study of class in American literature. He has published widely on twentieth-century British and American culture. He is currently editing a collection on music and protest since 1900. Kieran Cashell, Kevin C. Dunn, Deborah Finding, John Hutnyk, Stephen A. King, Stefan Mattessich, Neil Nehring, Sam O'Connell, Ian Peddie, Christopher A. Scales, David Thurmaier, Sheila Whiteley.
Reviews for Popular Music and Human Rights: 2 volume set
'Anyone interested in the topic of popular music and human rights can begin here. The volume gives an empirically grounded introduction to a variety of perspectives on the topic. It shows how human rights issues in popular music are embedded in everyday identity politics and media consumption. Moreover, the volume illustrates the complexity of music as a medium of expression in creating pleasure and discontent, coherence and unrest, individualism and collectivity.' Fabian Holt, Roskilde University, Denmark
