From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women's Generational Sonic Rhetorics

Explores how Black women have continually used sound to convey stories and forge community across generations.

From Blues to Beyoncé amplifies Black women's ongoing public assertions of resistance, agency, and hope across different media from the nineteenth century to today. By examining recordings, music videos, autobiographical writings, and speeches, Alexis McGee explores how figures such as Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Janelle Monáe, and more mobilize sound to challenge antiBlack discourses and extend social justice pedagogies. Building on contemporary Black feminist interventions in sound studies and sonic rhetorics, From Blues to Beyoncé reveals how Black women's sonic acts transmit meaning and knowledge within, between, and across generations.

Author: Alexis McGee
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 02/01/2024
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.16lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9781438496498

About the Author

Alexis McGee is Assistant Professor of Research in the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia.

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