Mapping the Blues Women from margin to centre
A critical engagement with refusal in the Blues Women's soundscape and landscape
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5042347 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sophia E Gerth (0009-0002-4720-5225, The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 140 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-16 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/01417789251362083 |
| OpenAlex | W4412820583 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
This project theorises with the Blues Women epistemology by evaluating the agentic potential found in Black women blues musicians' affective tools. More specifically, I use Sister Rosetta Tharpe as a theoretical case study for how the Blues Women were able to subvert their genre and exercise agency. This writing carefully investigates these subversions in the form of Tharpe's soundscape (her musical choices) and landscape (the geography of her stage) through elements of Black feminist theory, such as sensorial protest and Black geographical thinking, illuminating the complexity of her affective choices like amalgamating different musical genre conventions and developing a new, spiritually informed star persona. Consequently, such analyses reveal the meaningful agentic potential found in these affective tools, as the Blues Women demonstrate a commitment to a politics of refusal in their creative choices, a practice that is central to the blues epistemology and genre. This project, therefore, posits the Blues Women as sophisticated meaning-makers in their ability to challenge defining aspects of the blues genre through affective appeals of bodily sensibilities like sound and staging. In going beyond traditional sites of knowledge production and methods of meaning-making, I assert that examining the contributions of the Blues Women also demands finding new ways to document agentic potential, such as through elements of radical feminist storytelling
Art · Art history · Blues · Feminism · Margin (machine learning) · Sociology · Sound (geography) · Soundscape · Diversity and Impact of Dance · Gender Studies · Geology · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Oceanography
Black Geographic possibilities
What is soundscape ecology? An introduction and overview of an emerging new science
Development Arrested
In Search of the Black Women's History Archive
Intimate Justice
Extensions on a Black Musical Tropology
A queer black woman invented rock-and-roll”
The Theatricality of the Blues
In Body and Spirit
Rock! It's Still Rhythm and Blues
Rights and the Constitution in Black Life during the Civil War and Reconstruction
Reimagining landscape
Feminism in Coalition
Black matters are spatial matters
Is there such a thing as the 'blue note
Sonic Cyberfeminisms
Staging the blues
The body politic of dissent
Reviving rosetta tharpe
Rethinking the Soundscape
Blues and our mind-body problem
Black Feminism and the Violence of Disco
From Spirituals to Swing
Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans
Feminist Theory
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |