Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender, and The"Vulgar" Body of Jamaican Popular CultureThe language of Jamaican popular culture—its folklore, idioms, music, poetry, song—even when written is based on a tradition of sound, an orality that has often been denigrated as not worthy of serious study. In Noises in the Blood, Carolyn Cooper critically examines the dismissed discourse of Jamaica’s vibrant popular culture and reclaims these cultural forms, both oral and textual, from an undeserved neglect. Cooper’s exploration of Jamaican popular culture covers a wide range of topics, including Bob Marley’s lyrics, the performance poetry of Louise Bennett, Mikey Smith, and Jean Binta Breeze, Michael Thelwell’s novelization of The Harder They Come, the Sistren Theater Collective’s Lionheart Gal, and the vitality of the Jamaican DJ culture. Her analysis of this cultural "noise" conveys the powerful and evocative content of these writers and performers and emphasizes their contribution to an undervalued Caribbean identity. Making the connection between this orality, the feminized Jamaican "mother tongue," and the characterization of this culture as low or coarse or vulgar, she incorporates issues of gender into her postcolonial perspective. Cooper powerfully argues that these contemporary vernacular forms must be recognized as genuine expressions of Jamaican culture and as expressions of resistance to marginalization, racism, and sexism. With its focus on the continuum of oral/textual performance in Jamaican culture, Noises in the Blood, vividly and stylishly written, offers a distinctive approach to Caribbean cultural studies. |
Contents
transgressive | 19 |
proverb as meta | 37 |
the performance poetry of | 68 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender, and the"Vulgar" Body of Jamaican ... Carolyn Cooper Limited preview - 1995 |
Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender, and The"Vulgar" Body of Jamaican ... Carolyn Cooper Limited preview - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
African album Anansi Babylon becomes Bob Marley bout bwoy Caribbean Creole critical cyaan dance dancehall discourse DJ's doan dub poetry eena English essays example female feminist film gender girl Gleaner gwan gyal haffi ideological Island Records Ivan Ivan's Jamaica Journal Jamaican English Jamaican popular culture Jean Binta Breeze Kingston Know No Law Lady language lickle Lionheart literary literature London Louise Bennett Lovindeer Lovindeer's male Marley's meck Mervyn Morris metaphor Mikey Smith mout native nayga ooman oral texts oral/scribal performance poetry Peter Tosh pickney poem poet political proverb Rastafari Rastafarian Rastaman reggae Rhygin scribal sexual Sistren Slackness social song story subversive talk teck teet tell Thelwell's ting tink tradition verbal voice vulgar waan West Indian West Indian Literature woman women words writing