“In every living soul, a spirit cries for expression—perhaps this plaintive, wailing song of Jazz is, after all, the misunderstood utterance of a prayer.”
Please find below the Critical Reading to accompany The Jazz Singer, Jeffrey Knapp's "Sacred Songs, Popular Prices: Secularization in The Jazz Singer."
jeffrey_knapp_sacred_songs_popular_prices_secularization_in_the_jazz_singer.pdf | |
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Key Terms from Knapp's Article and for study of The Jazz Singer:
Secularization: the process by which practices, institutions or people are removed from the domain of the influence of religion. To this definition, Knapp adds: "By “secularization” I mean the process not just of displacing religion but
of transforming it to secular use" (319).
Assimilation: the process by which people of different backgrounds come to see themselves as part of a larger national family.
Blackface: A form of theatrical makeup used on the American stage by (usually, but not always) white performers dressing up and caricaturing African-Americans. It is almost universally acknowledged to be a racist tradition and the donning of blackface makeup (which was traditionally cork, greasepaint, or shoe polish) is a strong taboo in the present day. Blackface was one of the defining elements of a theatrical tradition called "minstrelsy" which was popular in North America from the 1830s to the 1930s. While wearing blackface makeup is now taboo and has largely been eliminated as a practice, the minstrel tradition was so influential during the period of the formation of American popular culture that the dynamics of minstrelsy still persist, in residue, in many domains of popular culture. Spike Lee's film Bamboozled (2000) investigates the legacies of minstrelsy. The film includes this montage of minstrel performances, some of them performed in blackface, and others carrying on the racist caricatures of the minstrel tradition without technically using blackface make-up.
Secularization: the process by which practices, institutions or people are removed from the domain of the influence of religion. To this definition, Knapp adds: "By “secularization” I mean the process not just of displacing religion but
of transforming it to secular use" (319).
Assimilation: the process by which people of different backgrounds come to see themselves as part of a larger national family.
Blackface: A form of theatrical makeup used on the American stage by (usually, but not always) white performers dressing up and caricaturing African-Americans. It is almost universally acknowledged to be a racist tradition and the donning of blackface makeup (which was traditionally cork, greasepaint, or shoe polish) is a strong taboo in the present day. Blackface was one of the defining elements of a theatrical tradition called "minstrelsy" which was popular in North America from the 1830s to the 1930s. While wearing blackface makeup is now taboo and has largely been eliminated as a practice, the minstrel tradition was so influential during the period of the formation of American popular culture that the dynamics of minstrelsy still persist, in residue, in many domains of popular culture. Spike Lee's film Bamboozled (2000) investigates the legacies of minstrelsy. The film includes this montage of minstrel performances, some of them performed in blackface, and others carrying on the racist caricatures of the minstrel tradition without technically using blackface make-up.