Synopses & Reviews
Long associated with the pejorative clichés of the drug-trafficking trade and political violence, contemporary Colombia has been unfairly stigmatized. In this pioneering study of the Miami music industry and Miamis growing Colombian community, María Elena Cepeda boldly asserts that popular music provides an alternative common space for imagining and enacting Colombian identity. Using an interdisciplinary analysis of popular media, music, and music video, Cepeda teases out issues of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and transnational identity in the Latino/a music industry and among its most renowned rock
en español, pop, and
vallenato stars.
Musical ImagiNation provides an overview of the ongoing Colombian political and economic crisis and the dynamics of Colombian immigration to metropolitan Miami. More notably, placed in this context, the book discusses the creative work and media personas of talented Colombian artists Shakira, Andrea Echeverri of Aterciopelados, and Carlos Vives. In her examination of the transnational figures and music that illuminate the recent shifts in the meanings attached to Colombian identity both in the United States and Latin America, Cepeda argues that music is a powerful arbitrator of memory and transnational identity.
Review
"A readable book well suited for most academic libraries." - Choice
Review
"An exploration of the history and practices of black healers and healing illuminating the vital cultural, intellectual, and spiritual expression of a people. This fine multidisciplinary work draws deeply and thoughtfully from the experiences and words of its subjects, offering alternative visions of human creativity, resistance, and community." - Yvonne Chireau, author of Black Magic: Religion and the African-American Conjuring Tradition
Review
“
African American Folk Healing is an insightful work that places folk healing within the context of larger spiritual, political, and intellectual movements. It illuminates the interconnectedness among activism, medicine, gender studies, folklore, and theology that influence the ways African American female healers work and live.”
- The Journal of African American History
Review
“Persuasively argued. . . . A fascinating study that makes a real contribution to discussions of health, wellness and faith in America.“
“An exploration of the history and practices of black healers and healing illuminating the vital cultural, intellectual, and spiritual expression of a people. This fine multidisciplinary work draws deeply and thoughtfully from the experiences and words of its subjects, offering alternative visions of human creativity, resistance, and community.”
“A readable book well suited for most academic libraries.”
“African American Folk Healing is an insightful work that places folk healing within the context of larger spiritual, political, and intellectual movements. It illuminates the interconnectedness among activism, medicine, gender studies, folklore, and theology that influence the ways African American female healers work and live.”
“According to the author, African American folk healing sees sickness as arising from situations that break ‘relational connections ’ of the unborn, the born, and the dead, which are intertwined.”
Review
"The book is a major contribution to studies of the production of Latin music in the United States and a significant intervention into debates about musical identities in an out of Columbia."-Keith Negus,Journal of Popular Music
Review
"Cepeda's analysis stands on its own strength, grounded in her explication of complex social contexts in which popular Colombian music is made and disseminated . . . She skillfully weaves analyses of race, gender, class, and nation and offers multiple readings of of singular texts or perfromances."-Hui Wilcox,Ethnic and Racial Studies
Review
“A valuable contribution to Latino/a cultural studies. Cepedas book expands the traditional boundaries by focusing on Colombianos transnational identity through popular music. Cepedas sophisticated, critical, and compelling arguments locate popular music as an alternative to violence in the social imaginaries of and about Colombianos. Erudite, rigorously researched, and accessibly written.”
-Frances R. Aparicio,author of Listening to Salsa
Review
“Using the lens of popular music to illuminate the aesthetics and identities of Colombian musicians and their fans within the United States, Maria Elena Cepedas Musical ImagiNation finally gives these ‘new Latinos, so long tainted by facile and stereotypical associations with drugs and violence, the thorough and respectful attention they deserve. A masterful and deft exposition that draws the threads of social history, media studies, transnational studies, and gender and critical discourse together.”
-Deborah Pacini Hernandez,Tufts University
Review
“According to the author, African American folk healing sees sickness as arising from situations that break ‘relational connections of the unborn, the born, and the dead, which are intertwined.”
-Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
Synopsis
Cure a nosebleed by holding a silver quarter on the back of the neck. Treat an earache with sweet oil drops. Wear plant roots to keep from catching colds. Within many African American families, these kinds of practices continue today, woven into the fabric of black culture, often communicated through women. Such folk practices shape the concepts about healing that are diffused throughout African American communities and are expressed in myriad ways, from faith healing to making a mojo.
Stephanie Y. Mitchem presents a fascinating study of African American healing. She sheds light on a variety of folk practices and traces their development from the time of slavery through the Great Migrations. She explores how they have continued into the present and their relationship with alternative medicines. Through conversations with black Americans, she demonstrates how herbs, charms, and rituals continue folk healing performances. Mitchem shows that these practices are not simply about healing; they are linked to expressions of faith, delineating aspects of a holistic epistemology and pointing to disjunctures between African American views of wellness and illness and those of the culture of institutional medicine.
Synopsis
Cure a nosebleed by holding a silver quarter on the back of the neck. Treat an earache with sweet oil drops. Wear plant roots to keep from catching colds. Within many African American families, these kinds of practices continue today, woven into the fabric of black culture, often communicated through women. Such folk practices shape the concepts about healing that are diffused throughout African American communities and are expressed in myriad ways, from faith healing to making a mojo.
Stephanie Y. Mitchem presents a fascinating study of African American healing. She sheds light on a variety of folk practices and traces their development from the time of slavery through the Great Migrations. She explores how they have continued into the present and their relationship with alternative medicines. Through conversations with black Americans, she demonstrates how herbs, charms, and rituals continue folk healing performances. Mitchem shows that these practices are not simply about healing; they are linked to expressions of faith, delineating aspects of a holistic epistemology and pointing to disjunctures between African American views of wellness and illness and those of the cultureof institutional medicine.
About the Author
Stephanie Mitchem is associate professor of religious studies and women's studies at the University of South Carolina. She is the author of Introducing Womanist Theology, as well as African American Women Tapping Power and Spiritual Wellness.