Among the Jasmine trees: Music, modernity, and the aesthetics of authenticity in contemporary Syria.
Item
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Title
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Among the Jasmine trees: Music, modernity, and the aesthetics of authenticity in contemporary Syria.
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Identifier
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AAI9997120
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identifier
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9997120
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Creator
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Shannon, Jonathan Holt.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Vincent Crapanzano
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | Music | History, Middle Eastern
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Abstract
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This work explores musical aesthetics as a domain of contestation related to broader debates within Syria over cultural modernity. Drawing on extensive field research in Aleppo and Damascus between 1996 and 1998, I argue that the performance and reception of the "classical" urban musical repertoire must be understood within the context of what I call "the aesthetics of authenticity." This aesthetic sensibility complements a broader interest among Syrian intellectuals in formulating the guidelines for an "alternative modernity" that, while intimately tied to European modernity, would be at once modern and authentically Syrian. For these artists and intellectuals, "authenticity" ( asâla implies cultural practices that are perceived as having a relationship to "heritage" (turâth), however they may understand and define this heritage.;Chapters one and two explore the aesthetics of authenticity and debates over authenticity and modernity in music and the arts. Chapter three examines the interrelation of European and Syrian discourses of modernity and their enactment in the contemporary Syrian art world. Chapter four discusses the temporal and spatial dimensions of authenticity in Syrian art and the role of conceptions of origins in debates over authenticity in Arab music. Chapter five explores processes of invocation, remembrance, and temporal transformation and their role in the construction of personhood in the Sufi dhikr . Chapter six analyzes the role of discourses of emotion and sentiment in the construction of authenticity in musical performance, while chapter seven discusses the concept of tarab or "musical rapture" as a metaphor for the social relations of performance that form the context of "authentic" musical and cultural experience in Aleppo. Chapter eight presents some reflections on the idea of closure, both in terms of the music that is the basis for this study and with respect to the process of ethnographic writing that attempts to capture something of the experience of listening to the music. I conclude that "authenticity" in Syria refers to a realm of emotion and spirit that, far from being backward looking, articulates the concern among Syrian intellectuals and artists for creating an alternative to both the perceived techno-rationality of Euro-American culture and to earlier attempts in Syria to imitate Western models of social modernization and cultural modernity.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
