1st Edition
Hymns and Constructions of Race Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality
Hymns and Constructions of Race: Mobility, Agency, De/Coloniality examines how the hymn, historically and today, has reinforced, negotiated, and resisted constructions of race. It brings together diverse perspectives from musicology, ethnomusicology, theology, anthropology, performance studies, history, and postcolonial scholarship to show how the hymn has perpetuated, generated, and challenged racial identities.
The global range of contributors cover a variety of historical and geographical contexts, with case studies from China and Brazil to Suriname and South Africa. They explore the hymn as a product of imperialism and settler colonialism and as a vehicle for sonic oppression and/or resistance, within and beyond congregational settings. The volume contends that the lived tradition of hymn-singing, with its connections to centuries of global Christian mission, is a particularly apt lens for examining both local and global negotiations of race, power, and identity. It will be relevant for scholars interested in religion, music, race, and postcolonialism.
1 Introduction: Constructing Hymns and Race
Erin Johnson-Williams and Philip Burnett
Part I: Mobility
2 Tonic Sol-fa Abroad: Missionaries, Hymn Singing and Indigenous Communities
Robin Stevens
3 Chinese Hymns and Worship Practices as Global Mobility
Huijuan Hua and Shujin Zhang
4 The Faith and Politics of Emily Kathleen Hooper (1878–1974): Complicating the Analysis of Christian Worship Music and Western Styles of Music in China
Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde
Part II Agency
5 And Wash the Æthiop White: Whiteness as Salvation and the Reception History of Wesley’s Conversion Hymn
Daniel Johnson
6 Anglican Ritualism and Xhosa Hymnody: The Training and Contribution of Reverend Daniel Malgas
Andrew-John Bethke
7 We Become What We Sing: Hymnody as Control
June Boyce-Tillman
8 Co-Writing our Hymn for Liberation
Liz Gre
Part III Coloniality
9 Performing Race and Place Through Hymn-Singing: A Brazilian Perspective
Marcel Silva Steuernagel
10 Translations and Retranslations: Cherokee Hymnody and the Literary Endeavors of Elias Boudinot
T. Wyatt Reynolds and Abraham Wallace
11 Sounding Coloniality and Voicing Resistance
Becca Whitla
Part IV Decoloniality
12 Decolonising a Hymn through its Mobility: A Case of Re-Location and Altered Musical Aesthetics
Kgomotso Moshugi
13 Hybridizing Heritage: Hymns as Decolonial Practice amongst the Javanese Surinameses
Jun Kai Pow
14 Challenging the Hymn Canon of ‘Christian Otherness’: The Nigerian Christian Songs Project as Means of Musical Decolonization
Monique M. Ingalls, Ayobami A. Ayanyinka, and Mouma Emmanuella Chesirri
Foreword: Singing Down the Dividing Walls
C. Michael Hawn
Biography
Erin Johnson-Williams is Lecturer in Music Education and Social Justice in the Department of Music at the University of Southampton, UK.
Philip Burnett is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Music at the University of York, UK.
