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Song of exile : the enduring mystery of Psalm 137 / David W. Stowe.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2016]Description: xiii, 214 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780190466831
  • 0190466839
Subject(s):
Contents:
Part One: History : -- Mapping history -- Comprehending migration -- Babylonia -- In Nebuchadnezzar's court -- By the Kebar -- People of the land -- Jeremiah -- Lamentations -- Strange lands -- Existential exile -- Rivers of Watertown -- Rivers of reggae -- Part Two: Memory : -- Commanding memory -- New World Babylon -- American Jeremiah -- Africa as new Israel -- Dvořák's Psalm -- Million dollar voice -- Moses or Jeremiah -- Exodus or exile -- Memory coerced -- "Wood Street" -- Part Three: Forgetting : -- Revisiting a vanished world -- Parsing the unspeakable -- Allegorical answers -- The Reformation turn -- American vengeance -- Our better angels -- Sepulchers of memory -- Theologies of vengeance -- After exile -- Epilogue.
Summary: Oft-referenced and frequently set to music, Psalm 137 -- which begins "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion" -- has become something of a cultural touchstone for music and Christianity across the Atlantic world. It has been a top single more than once in the 20th century, from Don McLean's haunting Anglo-American folk cover to Boney M's West Indian disco mix. In Song of Exile, David Stowe uses a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach that combines personal interviews, historical overview, and textual analysis to demonstrate the psalm's enduring place in popular culture. The line that begins Psalm 137 -- one of the most lyrical of the Hebrew Bible -- has been used since its genesis to evoke the grief and protest of exiled, displaced, or marginalized communities. Despite the psalm's popularity, little has been written about its reception during the more than 2,500 years since the Babylonian exile. Stowe locates its use in the American Revolution and the Civil Rights movement, and internationally by anti-colonial Jamaican Rastafari and immigrants from Ireland, Korea, and Cuba. He studies musical references ranging from the Melodians' Rivers of Babylon to the score in Kazakh film Tulpan. Stowe concludes by exploring the presence and absence in modern culture of the often-ignored final words: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Usually excised from liturgy and forgotten by scholars, Stowe finds these words echoed in modern occurrences of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and more generally in the culture of vengeance that has existed in North America from the earliest conflicts with Native Americans.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 223.206 S892 Available 33111008401388
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Oft-referenced and frequently set to music, Psalm 137 - which begins "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion" - has become something of a cultural touchstone for music and Christianity across the Atlantic world. It has been a top single more than once in the 20th century, from Don McLean's haunting Anglo-American folk cover to Boney M's West Indian disco mix. In Song of Exile, David Stowe uses a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach that combines personal interviews, historical overview, and textual analysis to demonstrate the psalm's enduring place in popular culture.

The line that begins Psalm 137 - one of the most lyrical of the Hebrew Bible - has been used since its genesis to evoke the grief and protest of exiled, displaced, or marginalized communities. Despite the psalm's popularity, little has been written about its reception during the more than 2,500 years since the Babylonian exile. Stowe locates its use in the American Revolution and the Civil Rights movement, and internationally by anti-colonial Jamaican Rastafari and immigrants from Ireland, Korea, and Cuba. He studies musical references ranging from the Melodians' Rivers of Babylon to the score in Kazakh film Tulpan.

Stowe concludes by exploring the presence and absence in modern culture of the often-ignored final words: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Usually excised from liturgy and forgotten by scholars, Stowe finds these words echoed in modern occurrences of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and more generally in the culture of vengeance that has existed in North America from the earliest conflicts with Native Americans.

Based on numerous interviews with musicians, theologians, and writers, Stowe reconstructs the rich and varied reception history of this widely used, yet mysterious, text.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [185]-202) and index.

Part One: History : -- Mapping history -- Comprehending migration -- Babylonia -- In Nebuchadnezzar's court -- By the Kebar -- People of the land -- Jeremiah -- Lamentations -- Strange lands -- Existential exile -- Rivers of Watertown -- Rivers of reggae -- Part Two: Memory : -- Commanding memory -- New World Babylon -- American Jeremiah -- Africa as new Israel -- Dvořák's Psalm -- Million dollar voice -- Moses or Jeremiah -- Exodus or exile -- Memory coerced -- "Wood Street" -- Part Three: Forgetting : -- Revisiting a vanished world -- Parsing the unspeakable -- Allegorical answers -- The Reformation turn -- American vengeance -- Our better angels -- Sepulchers of memory -- Theologies of vengeance -- After exile -- Epilogue.

Oft-referenced and frequently set to music, Psalm 137 -- which begins "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion" -- has become something of a cultural touchstone for music and Christianity across the Atlantic world. It has been a top single more than once in the 20th century, from Don McLean's haunting Anglo-American folk cover to Boney M's West Indian disco mix. In Song of Exile, David Stowe uses a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach that combines personal interviews, historical overview, and textual analysis to demonstrate the psalm's enduring place in popular culture. The line that begins Psalm 137 -- one of the most lyrical of the Hebrew Bible -- has been used since its genesis to evoke the grief and protest of exiled, displaced, or marginalized communities. Despite the psalm's popularity, little has been written about its reception during the more than 2,500 years since the Babylonian exile. Stowe locates its use in the American Revolution and the Civil Rights movement, and internationally by anti-colonial Jamaican Rastafari and immigrants from Ireland, Korea, and Cuba. He studies musical references ranging from the Melodians' Rivers of Babylon to the score in Kazakh film Tulpan. Stowe concludes by exploring the presence and absence in modern culture of the often-ignored final words: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Usually excised from liturgy and forgotten by scholars, Stowe finds these words echoed in modern occurrences of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and more generally in the culture of vengeance that has existed in North America from the earliest conflicts with Native Americans.

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