Canadian remembrance of the Great War (1914-1918) in the early twenty-first century is often associated with grand gestures at national monuments like the opening of the new Canadian War Museum in 2005 and the restoration of the Vimy Ridge Memorial in 2007. However, these sites of memory, what Pierre Nora terms lieux de mémoire, are not part of the everyday environments of memory, the milieux de mémoire, of most Canadians. In my investigation of three contemporary works of Canadian literature: The Danger Tree by David Macfarlane, Broken Ground by Jack Hodgins, and Unity (1918) by Kevin Kerr, locally-based storytellers describe the continued influence of the Great War on their individual Canadian communities. The fictionalized narrating personas in these three works create what I refer to as bio-geographies: first-person accounts of the narrator’s particular social and memory environments. While the bio-geographers in these three texts lack first-hand experience of the Great War, their writing reflects the continued repercussions of the conflict in the weeks, years, and decades after the 1918 armistice. The Great War differentially affected thousands of communities in Canada and Newfoundland. Constructing a coherent national narrative that accounts for the multiple lived experiences of individuals in communities across North America is virtually impossible. Turning to local representations of the Great War (in the case of the three bio-geographic texts: depictions of communities in Newfoundland, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan) provides a sense of the nation as a diverse landscape of memory with multiple vantage points. Negotiating the complex terrain of self, place, and memory, the bio-geographers in the three works I examine create representations of the past that reveal how sites of memory, lieux de mémoire, come to be firmly embedded in the ongoing lived experiences of comunity members, the milieux de mémoire.

<p>Miles Davis, never one for self-effacing humility, took his boasting to new heights when he proclaimed in a <i>Rolling Stone</i> interview from December 1969, "I could put together the greatest rock and roll band you ever heard." Most critics agree that <i>A Tribute to Jack Johnson</i>, recorded between February and April of 1970, was his attempt to do just that. The album featured an ensemble that was closer to a rock power trio than a jazz quintet, musicians who were as schooled in rock and R&B as in jazz, and a prominent use of emerging instrument and studio technologies previously unheard in Davis's music. In highlighting these stylistic markers, <i>A Tribute to Jack Johnson</i> made definitive the musical transition that Davis's immediately preceding works had set in motion. </p><p> Though few fans of the era would have been surprised by Davis's invocation of the value-laden vocabulary of "greatness" in describing his music, many were taken aback by his desire to associate with rock and roll. For a musician trained in the jazz tradition and revered as a master of the genre, the intentional incorporation of influences from popular music was viewed by many jazz listeners as nothing short of heretical. What did it mean, then, for Davis to make such a claim - and such an album - at the particular time that he did? </p><p> To address these two questions, I investigate in my dissertation the production, circulation, and reception of both the stand-alone album <i>A Tribute to Jack Johnson</i> and the documentary film for which parts of the album were initially the soundtrack. Combining my training in music with scholarly perspectives on identity politics, technology studies, film studies, and African American social and political history, I demonstrate how this recording comprises both a signal incursion into accepted jazz practice, and a unique window onto vital debates around jazz, popular culture, and identity constructions in the U.S. in the early 1970s. This dissertation thereby offers one approach for continuing the critical re-evaluation of fusion jazz that has prominently been in progress since the late 1990s.</p> / Dissertation

No description available.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 9, 2010). Includes bibliographical reference (p. 165-182).

Inaug.--Diss.--Bern. / Issued also without thesis statement. Vita. Bibliography: p. 107-109.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references ([65]-66).

No description available.

No description available.

Canadian remembrance of the Great War (1914-1918) in the early twenty-first century is often associated with grand gestures at national monuments like the opening of the new Canadian War Museum in 2005 and the restoration of the Vimy Ridge Memorial in 2007. However, these sites of memory, what Pierre Nora terms lieux de mémoire, are not part of the everyday environments of memory, the milieux de mémoire, of most Canadians. In my investigation of three contemporary works of Canadian literature: The Danger Tree by David Macfarlane, Broken Ground by Jack Hodgins, and Unity (1918) by Kevin Kerr, locally-based storytellers describe the continued influence of the Great War on their individual Canadian communities. The fictionalized narrating personas in these three works create what I refer to as bio-geographies: first-person accounts of the narrator’s particular social and memory environments. While the bio-geographers in these three texts lack first-hand experience of the Great War, their writing reflects the continued repercussions of the conflict in the weeks, years, and decades after the 1918 armistice. The Great War differentially affected thousands of communities in Canada and Newfoundland. Constructing a coherent national narrative that accounts for the multiple lived experiences of individuals in communities across North America is virtually impossible. Turning to local representations of the Great War (in the case of the three bio-geographic texts: depictions of communities in Newfoundland, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan) provides a sense of the nation as a diverse landscape of memory with multiple vantage points. Negotiating the complex terrain of self, place, and memory, the bio-geographers in the three works I examine create representations of the past that reveal how sites of memory, lieux de mémoire, come to be firmly embedded in the ongoing lived experiences of comunity members, the milieux de mémoire.

Since their original formation in the summer of 1997, Detroit rock duo, the White Stripes have occupied a formidable and well-publicized position within the context of American music. Despite this accomplished status, the majority of discourse surrounding the White Stripes has tended toward sensationalized fandom or immediate and callous dismissal, with little investigation as to how the duo have been so polarizing. Recognizing a key analytical void in such a treatment of the duo, this thesis examines the White Stripes with the tools of postmodern thought, considering their artful use of kitsch and sincerity in their image, musical language, and aesthetic. In so doing, it offers much-needed insight into the band’s widespread appeal as a blues revival band at the end of the rock era.