No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Comparative Literature, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Dec. 3, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-03, Section: A, page: 0985. Chair: Eugene Chen Eoyang.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Susan Goodman, Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

<p> This dissertation explores operatic adaptations of Orlando <i>JR furioso </i> in the eighteenth century, particularly as they relate to the Arcadian Academy. Whereas the seventeenth century witnessed only a handful of <i> Furioso</i>-themed operas, the eighteenth century was a veritable geyser of operatic Orlando; dozens of libretti were produced on the subject, leading to an eighteenth-century craze for the crazed, staged Orlando. The most celebrated and most diffused operatic adaptations of the <i>Furioso</i> were produced by members of the highly influential Arcadian Academy, an institution that aimed to establish a literary (and therefore social, cultural, and political) reign of good taste and reason throughout the European continent. This dissertation probes why and how Arcadians, self-proclaimed harbingers of eighteenth-century reason, were so invested in the operatic depiction of a Renaissance madman. I am interested not only in the intertextual threads of operatic Orlando that is, how librettists and composers translated sixteenth-century sensibilities to the eighteenth-century stage&mdash;but also how these intertextual threads can be read for their broad cultural resonances. Operatic Orlando, in his many permutations, is emblematic of the complexities and contradictions espoused by the Arcadian Academy, and, as such, is crucial to the shaping of an eighteenth-century ethos.</p><p> This dissertation consists of five chapters. The first chapter explores the different ways in which Arcadians understood madness, in its myriad manifestations. Rather than focusing specifically on opera, I cast a wide net in my discussion in order to holistically approach Arcadian theories and practices: through an examination of early Arcadian writings I identify threads and currents that likely formed the text/texture for the operatic Orlando craze. Chapter 2 focuses more specifically on Arcadian opera, if such a concept truly existed: drawing from the works of scholars of music history such as those of Freeman, Strohm, and Smith, I explore the conventions of eighteenth-century opera and contextualize them within the frame of the Arcadian Academy and its reform culture. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 form the analytical body of the dissertation, as they each probe the conditions and textual questions of specific adaptations of the <i>Furioso</i>. I consider the libretti discussed in each of these chapters to be `ur-adaptations,' in that they were each performed&mdash;and often modified&mdash;numerous times in diverse locales, serving as textual bases for many of the eighteenth-century <i>Furioso</i> adaptations. In these chapters I perform both historical analyses and close readings of texts, as well as musical analyses and examinations of related textual objects. Thus in Chapter 3 I read Grazio Braccioli's libretto <i>Orlando furioso </i> (1713) as well as his related libretto <i>Orlando finto pazzo </i> (1714), and explore the musical settings of composer Antonio Vivaldi as they were performed at the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice; in Chapter 4 I turn to Rome, with Carlo Sigismondo Capece's libretto <i>Orlando ovvero la gelosa pazzia</i> (1711), and follow the work to its London iteration <i> Orlando</i> (1733), which was set to music by George Frideric Handel; finally, in Chapter 5 I analyze Pietro Metastasio's serenata <i>L'Angelica </i> (1720) within the context of the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, and explore its resonances throughout Europe.</p><p>

Among the Dahomey of West Africa, the spirit Legba presides over all transitions, and African-American blues and jazz musicians can be considered his "children," or followers, since their music provides a link between the physical and spiritual worlds, the past and the present, and between cultures. Chapter one provides a cross-cultural perspective on the role of the musician in various societies, with the emphasis on Western Europe and West Africa, including a description of the special status of female musicians. Chapter two considers how the derogatory stereotypes of black musicians created by the nineteenth-century minstrel show allowed performers to cross the racial, sexual, and class boundaries of American society. Only if we recognize the paradox of freedom offered by this vestige of slavery will we be able to make sense of the fact that black performers adapted the minstrel roles after the Civil War. The third chapter describes the social role of the black musician of the jazz age, beginning with the controversy surrounding jazz in the early twenties, and tracing the survival of African musical practices and beliefs in jazz and the blues. The careers of many musicians are analyzed to demonstrate the range of opportunities open to black performers in the period. Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown wrote poetry inspired by the blues, adopting the persona of the musician in order to speak with an authentic folk voice. Chapter four considers how musicians are represented in their writing and compares their blues poems to the recordings of contemporary blues performers. The great jazz musicians of the twenties and thirties fired the imaginations of many modern African-American writers by providing a living link to African spiritual traditions and a new model of what history can be when it breaks free from the academy. Chapter five examines the representations of blues and jazz musicians in novels by Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker and Ishmael Reed, showing that all three writers assume the role of improvising historian by adapting the narrative techniques of the West African griot and the repetition with variation of the jazz musician.

This dissertation analyses the role of popular music in contemporary Spanish culture. The eighties were a fascinating period of Spanish history, as the country was making its transition from dictatorship to democracy, and there were high national and international expectations connected to this change. The popular music of this period amply reflects the changes that the new country was undergoing. This study is theoretically grounded in new trends in Cultural Studies which open up and expand what we understand by “Culture” today. In this new theoretical reconfiguration, popular music today plays a predominant function in the conception of the social and cultural space of Spain. Through the study of these songs, we are able to understand this particular historical moment better, and also see how this culture has shaped us today. In the present “age of mechanical reproduction” (using Walter Benjamin's terminology) we are key contributors to Culture, yet we are also shaped by it. Because of this, all processes of cultural production deserve to be examined. The analysis responds to the recent parameters in contemporary Spanish Cultural and Literary Studies, an area which needs more scholarly attention, reflecting as it does current changes in our world. This work seeks to develop and legitimate a previously neglected and ignored area of study, using an interdisciplinary approach, by integrating different disciplines such as Music, Literature, or History.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Warschau. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-[300]).

Thesis (Ph. D. in English)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2008. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Pogonowski. Dissertation Committee: Abeles. Bibliography: leaves 241-245.