Angela Davis

Paper Summary:

Angela Y. Davis was one of the founding mothers of the radical black feminist and civil rights movement. Her participation in these movements was not simply vocal and intellectual, but profoundly political as well. In particular, it examines how a different, more artistic side of her political interests comes to light regarding Davis' works in "Blues, Legacy and Black Feminism", in which she shows an interest in black feminist works beyond that of the purely verbal and prosaic.

From the Paper:

"Perhaps inevitably, the second half of the work and its project falls a bit short. The main problem with the methodology of emphasizing lyrics is that it tends to bring "the word" or a literary rather than a musical perspective to the forefront in understanding these performance artists. This bias may be inevitable, given Professor Davis' own background. But these women were not of the academy "their music was performed as a living text. However, although the inclusions of the lyrics and the lyrical analysis is not as strong as the first more historically oriented part of the book that seems to be more in line with Davis' abilities as an historian, the analysis of the lyrics does reveal that these artists did discuss issues of domestic violence and transgressing lesbian love in a way that is seldom given credit."

More papers on Angela Davis:

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• Essay # 46806 : "The Angela Y. Davis Reader"

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