Song of Exile

No poem has exerted a more sustained pull on the political imagination of people around the world than Psalm 137. Song of Exile is an archaeology of this enduring text, which opens a window on the Babylonian Exile 2,500 years ago—a crucial event for the formation of Judaism—and has been a siren song to musicians, artists, writers, theologians, and leaders. This book unpacks the subtle ways in which memory of the Exile has affected the self-understanding of Jews, Christians, and other displaced communities. Like many stories and passages from the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 137 is highly adaptable, open to a variety of interpretations. Its central question— How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? —has been a defining part of the experience of migrants and refugees worldwide. The psalm deals with cultural dispossession and exile, sketching the stages of coming to grips with trauma: confusion and grief, introspection, rage. It offers a memorable image of uprooted people languishing beside a river, coerced to make music but unsure how to proceed. Babylon can stand for any oppressive power, whether political, cultural, or spiritual. The text has been America’s longest-running political protest song, taken up in antiracist and anticolonial movements around the globe. Through archival research and interviews with musicians, composers, ministers, historians, and theologians, this book offers a fascinating multidisciplinary reception history of this ageless text.

Aesthetics · Art · Globe · Introspection · Literature · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Refugee · Variety (cybernetics) · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Appreciation · Bible · Bible, criticism, interpretation, etc., o. t. poetical books · Criticism, interpretation · Influence · Western civilization

• Inhabiting Liminality

  Open Access•Kelley Tialiou•Humanities•2019

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