Monday, February 9, 2015
The Rise of Popular Culture
"The Rise of Popular Culture: A Historiographical Sketch" by LeRoy Ashby covered a lot of topics and movements in an interesting manner and he made the events inter-related. Ashby gave interesting examples of historians looking for historical facts that were overlooked. When Bill Malone was working on his PhD dissertation, he found there were no academic articles writen about country music. A stark contrast was another historian, Lawrence Levine. He examined the recorded folk history of African Americans and chose to discredit the perception that African Americans were inarticulate, impotent, formed by events they had no control over. This was a very perceptive understanding that this strongly biased historical view of African Americans was a formed by political power forcing a false, unflattering cultural view on an entire group of individuals. Levine had the opportunity to study events and individuals he thought were historically and culturally significant. Ashby writes, that when Levine had to depart from traditional histories, he "felt quite lonely and vulnerable". I understood from this comment that Levine faced many difficulties, he did not have cohorts ready to assist him and the political climate was violently opposed to civil rights. In addition, I can't help but think he felt rushed to uncover historical details in the form of artifacts, letters or documentation and witnesses before this information vanished or people died.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is an interesting point you bring up about Levine. It is hard to be a first mover on things because everyone expects you to fail so you feel immense pressure to prove them wrong. It's a huge risk, but in the end Levine became a trendsetter himself.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting point you bring up about Levine. It is hard to be a first mover on things because everyone expects you to fail so you feel immense pressure to prove them wrong. It's a huge risk, but in the end Levine became a trendsetter himself.
ReplyDeleteA few people didn't believe Levine or that things may be impossible to do or accomplish. Faith wasn't around nor beliefs. When no one believes a person they either give up and not try at all or prove them wrong by going through routes and difficult areas.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you mentioned the part where Levine says that he felt very lonely and vulnerable. It’s a sad fact, but unfortunately very realistic, for people who choose to go against the majority like he did. He studied the part of culture that most would never even bother looking at, or even consider actual culture. In reality, he studied culture in its purest form.
ReplyDelete