“Natural” virtuosos: Paradoxical polysemy and the rhetoric of the Fisk Jubilee Singers

IF 1.3 2区 文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION
Kelly Jakes
{"title":"“Natural” virtuosos: Paradoxical polysemy and the rhetoric of the Fisk Jubilee Singers","authors":"Kelly Jakes","doi":"10.1080/00335630.2022.2088840","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines the rhetoric of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the famous nineteenth-century choir whose domestic and international performances saved Fisk University from financial ruin, legitimized African American spirituals as high art, and offered a powerful argument for Black American citizenship during the post-Reconstruction era. While scholars have examined reactions to the choir's performances in the nineteenthcentury press, none have studied the organization's own discourse for insights into how the choir's white leaders positioned and promoted the troupe. In this essay, I recover their discourse by examining 35 extant concert programs that accompanied the Singers’ performances between 1871 and 1878. I argue that they work through a rhetorical move that I have termed paradoxical polysemy, a type of polysemy that emerges in contexts beset by ambivalence and navigates multiple, contradictory beliefs within a singular audience. Deploying appeals to the choir's “natural” musical talent that worked in two different registers, the programs negotiated white allies’ inconsistent beliefs about race, appealing both to their desire to help Black people and their wish to maintain white supremacy. Additionally, these dual appeals to the “natural” worked to help the Singers argue for the political and social inclusion of all Black Americans, regardless of their level of education.","PeriodicalId":51545,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Speech","volume":"59 1","pages":"271 - 291"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quarterly Journal of Speech","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2022.2088840","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the rhetoric of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the famous nineteenth-century choir whose domestic and international performances saved Fisk University from financial ruin, legitimized African American spirituals as high art, and offered a powerful argument for Black American citizenship during the post-Reconstruction era. While scholars have examined reactions to the choir's performances in the nineteenthcentury press, none have studied the organization's own discourse for insights into how the choir's white leaders positioned and promoted the troupe. In this essay, I recover their discourse by examining 35 extant concert programs that accompanied the Singers’ performances between 1871 and 1878. I argue that they work through a rhetorical move that I have termed paradoxical polysemy, a type of polysemy that emerges in contexts beset by ambivalence and navigates multiple, contradictory beliefs within a singular audience. Deploying appeals to the choir's “natural” musical talent that worked in two different registers, the programs negotiated white allies’ inconsistent beliefs about race, appealing both to their desire to help Black people and their wish to maintain white supremacy. Additionally, these dual appeals to the “natural” worked to help the Singers argue for the political and social inclusion of all Black Americans, regardless of their level of education.
“自然”大师:矛盾的多义和菲斯克禧年歌手的修辞
本文考察了菲斯克Jubilee歌手的修辞,这是19世纪著名的合唱团,他们在国内和国际上的表演拯救了菲斯克大学,使非裔美国人的灵歌成为高雅艺术,并为重建后的美国黑人公民身份提供了有力的论据。虽然学者们研究了19世纪新闻界对合唱团表演的反应,但没有人研究过该组织自己的话语,以深入了解合唱团的白人领导人如何定位和推广剧团。在这篇文章中,我通过研究1871年至1878年间现存的35个伴随歌手演出的音乐会节目来恢复他们的话语。我认为,它们是通过一种我称之为矛盾的多义词的修辞手法来发挥作用的,这种多义词出现在被矛盾心理困扰的语境中,并在单一受众中引导多种相互矛盾的信念。这些项目利用合唱团在两种不同领域的“天生”音乐天赋,就白人盟友对种族的不一致看法进行了协商,既迎合了他们帮助黑人的愿望,又迎合了他们维持白人至上的愿望。此外,这些对“自然”的双重呼吁有助于歌手们为所有美国黑人的政治和社会包容而争论,无论他们的教育水平如何。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
CiteScore
1.80
自引率
36.40%
发文量
39
期刊介绍: The Quarterly Journal of Speech (QJS) publishes articles and book reviews of interest to those who take a rhetorical perspective on the texts, discourses, and cultural practices by which public beliefs and identities are constituted, empowered, and enacted. Rhetorical scholarship now cuts across many different intellectual, disciplinary, and political vectors, and QJS seeks to honor and address the interanimating effects of such differences. No single project, whether modern or postmodern in its orientation, or local, national, or global in its scope, can suffice as the sole locus of rhetorical practice, knowledge and understanding.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信