Daphne A. Brooks — Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
When:
Friday, Oct 15, 2021 3:00p -
4:00p
Friday, Oct 15, 2021 3:00p -
4:00p
Where:
Online event
Admission:
FREE
Categories:
History, Lectures & Conferences, Music, Social Good, Virtual & Streaming
Event website:
https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/613fbe7c2c17543f0081c720
Join the Boston Public Library for an online author talk with the winner of 2021 Museum of African American History (MAAH) Stone Book Award. In Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, Daphne A. Brooks, an award-winning Black feminist music critic, takes us on an epic journey through radical sound from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé. This program will be moderated by BPL President David Leonard.
This program will happen over Zoom webinar. To register, please visit the following link: https://boston-public-library.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lwST8rEKRSmn9x3g7b9bHg.
About the book
“Brooks traces all kinds of lines, finding unexpected points of connection…inviting voices to talk to one another, seeing what different perspectives can offer, opening up new ways of looking and listening by tracing lineages and calling for more space.”—The New York Times
Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry?
Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures—a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers. Zora Neale Hurston appears as a sound archivist and a performer, Lorraine Hansberry as a queer Black feminist critic of modern culture, and Pauline Hopkins as America’s first Black female cultural commentator. Brooks tackles the complicated racial politics of blues music recording, song collecting, and rock and roll criticism. She makes lyrical forays into the blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith, as well as fans who became critics, like the record-label entrepreneur and writer Rosetta Reitz. In the twenty-first century, pop superstar Janelle Monae’s liner notes are recognized for their innovations, while celebrated singers Cécile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, and Valerie June take their place as cultural historians.
With an innovative perspective on the story of Black women in popular music—and who should rightly tell it—Liner Notes for the Revolution pioneers a long overdue recognition and celebration of Black women musicians as radical intellectuals.
To purchase this book, please visit this link to Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/liner-notes-for-the-revolution-the-intellectual-life-of-black-feminist-sound/9780674052819.
About the author
Daphne A. Brooks is author of Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Bodies in Dissent, winner of the Errol Hill Award for outstanding scholarship in African American performance studies. The William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Theater Studies, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, Brooks has written liner notes to accompany the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Tammi Terrell, and Prince, as well as stories for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, and Pitchfork.
About the award
The MAAH Stone Book Award is an annual prize that encourages scholarship and writing within the field of African American history and culture by awarding a $25,000 winning prize and two $5,000 finalist prizes for exceptional adult non-fiction books written in a literary style. To learn more about the award, please visit the official website: https://www.maahstonebookaward.org/.
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