“America Changed Through Music”:
Harry Smith’s
Anthology of American Folk Music
Following a highly successful international conference in
September (http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/),
proposals are now invited for a book of essays marking the sixtieth anniversary
of Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology of
American Folk Music. Over the six decades since its release in 1952,
Smith’s collection of American vernacular musics has exerted considerable
influence on numerous generations of musicians, artists, and writers. “America Changed Through Music”: Harry
Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music will be the first collection of
essays to address the diverse legacies of what is widely considered a seminal
work in twentieth-century music and art. Taking Smith’s speech at the Grammy
Awards in 1991 as a starting-point —‘I’m glad to say that my dreams came true.
I saw America changed through music’—we welcome proposals for essays that may consider,
but are certainly not limited to, the following topics:
· The Anthology in relation to Smith’s broader body of work
· Analyses of individual artists and songs included in the Anthology
· The Anthology and the development of American music
· The Anthology’s influence on individual artists, writers, musicians, and beyond
· The Anthology’s aesthetics
· The Anthology’s politics
· The critical heritage surrounding the Anthology
· The 1997 CD reissue of the Anthology
· Transatlantic dialogues in the Anthology
· The cultural legacies of the Anthology
· The Anthology’s role in defining/redefining notions of the Old and the New ‘Weird America’
· The Anthology and ethnic and cultural identity
· The Anthology and its music in the twenty-first century
Please send proposals of 300-500 words to Dr Thomas Ruys
Smith [Thomas.Smith@uea.ac.uk] and Dr Ross Hair [R.Hair@uea.ac.uk] by December 20th 2012. Please
include a brief biographical statement / CV and contact details. [Submission of essays will be Summer 2013].
