Premium Members Get 10% Off and Earn Rewards Find Out More
The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music
Licia Fiol-Matta traces the careers of four iconic Puerto Rican singers--Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, Ernestina Reyes, and Lucecita Benítez--to explore how their voices and performance style transform the possibilities for comprehending the figure of the woman singer. Fiol-Matta shows how these musicians, despite seemingly intractable demands to represent gender norms, exercised their artistic and political agency by challenging expectations of how they should look, sound, and act. Fiol-Matta also breaks with conceptualizations of the female pop voice as spontaneous and intuitive, interrogating the notion of "the great woman singer" to deploy her concept of the "thinking voice"--an event of music, voice, and listening that rewrites dominant narratives. Anchored in the work of Lacan, Foucault, and others, Fiol-Matta's theorization of voice and gender in The Great Woman Singer makes accessible the singing voice's conceptual dimensions while revealing a dynamic archive of Puerto Rican and Latin American popular music.
1123505950
The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music
Licia Fiol-Matta traces the careers of four iconic Puerto Rican singers--Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, Ernestina Reyes, and Lucecita Benítez--to explore how their voices and performance style transform the possibilities for comprehending the figure of the woman singer. Fiol-Matta shows how these musicians, despite seemingly intractable demands to represent gender norms, exercised their artistic and political agency by challenging expectations of how they should look, sound, and act. Fiol-Matta also breaks with conceptualizations of the female pop voice as spontaneous and intuitive, interrogating the notion of "the great woman singer" to deploy her concept of the "thinking voice"--an event of music, voice, and listening that rewrites dominant narratives. Anchored in the work of Lacan, Foucault, and others, Fiol-Matta's theorization of voice and gender in The Great Woman Singer makes accessible the singing voice's conceptual dimensions while revealing a dynamic archive of Puerto Rican and Latin American popular music.
28.95 In Stock
The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music

The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music

by Licia Fiol-Matta
The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music

The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music

by Licia Fiol-Matta

Overview

Licia Fiol-Matta traces the careers of four iconic Puerto Rican singers--Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, Ernestina Reyes, and Lucecita Benítez--to explore how their voices and performance style transform the possibilities for comprehending the figure of the woman singer. Fiol-Matta shows how these musicians, despite seemingly intractable demands to represent gender norms, exercised their artistic and political agency by challenging expectations of how they should look, sound, and act. Fiol-Matta also breaks with conceptualizations of the female pop voice as spontaneous and intuitive, interrogating the notion of "the great woman singer" to deploy her concept of the "thinking voice"--an event of music, voice, and listening that rewrites dominant narratives. Anchored in the work of Lacan, Foucault, and others, Fiol-Matta's theorization of voice and gender in The Great Woman Singer makes accessible the singing voice's conceptual dimensions while revealing a dynamic archive of Puerto Rican and Latin American popular music.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780822362937
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication date: 02/03/2017
Series: Refiguring American Music Series
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 308
Sales rank: 676,782
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Licia Fiol-Matta teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She is the author of A Queer Mother for the Nation: The State and Gabriela Mistral.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction. I Am Nothing  1

1. Getting Off . . . the Nation  16

2. So What If She's Black?  67

3. Techne and the Lady  121

4. The Thinking Voice  172

Epilogue. Nothing Is Something  226

Notes  233

Bibliography  269

Index  279

What People are Saying About This

Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia - Ana María Ochoa Gautier

"In this book Licia Fiol-Matta brilliantly engages the complex politics that unfold in the performances, vocal nuances, lives, and times of four extraordinary Puerto Rican female pop singers. The intense 'thinking voice' in her writing re/sounds the conceptual density of the singers she investigates, whose complex figurations are primarily approached through a psychoanalytic study of the voice. Her detailed historical research and analytical incisiveness uncover the many crucibles of the vocal archive generating a rich acoustic tapestry that constitutes a remarkable transformation of feminist, queer, and colonial music scholarship."

Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia - Ana María Ochoa Gautier

"In this book Licia Fiol-Matta brilliantly engages the complex politics that unfold in the performances, vocal nuances, lives, and times of four extraordinary Puerto Rican female pop singers. The intense 'thinking voice' in her writing re/sounds the conceptual density of the singers she investigates, whose complex figurations are primarily approached through a psychoanalytic study of the voice. Her detailed historical research and analytical incisiveness uncover the many crucibles of the vocal archive generating a rich acoustic tapestry that constitutes a remarkable transformation of feminist, queer, and colonial music scholarship."

Arlene Dávila

"In this rigorous and original read, Licia Fiol-Matta puts a welcome nail in the masculine script dominating conversations about 'Latin' popular music and Puerto Rico’s musical history. Her critical biographical approach and her archive of the voice provide new standards for interdisciplinary research, while her treatment of female pop stars such as the giant, but largely obviated Lucecita Benítez, is simply moving and beautiful."

Arlene Dávila

"In this rigorous and original read, Licia Fiol-Matta puts a welcome nail in the masculine script dominating conversations about 'Latin' popular music and Puerto Rico’s musical history. Her critical biographical approach and her archive of the voice provide new standards for interdisciplinary research, while her treatment of female pop stars such as the giant, but largely obviated Lucecita Benítez, is simply moving and beautiful."

From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Related Subjects

Music, Film & Performing Arts
Music
World Music
Latin American Music
Latin American Music - General & Miscellaneous
Music, Film & Performing Arts
Music
World Music
Latin American Music
Latin American Music - General & Miscellaneous

Customer Reviews