Masking Modernity: Black Performance and the Struggle for a Modern Identity in the Progressive Era South

1 online resource (105 pages) : PDF

2015

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Centering on the concept of dual identity, my thesis examines how the larger black community in the South adjusted to modernity through acts of masking. More specifically, this work analyzes minstrelsy and jubilee spirituals in an effort to explain what these performances meant for African Americans’ perceptions of modernity in the Progressive Era South. While previous scholars have tended to narrow their focus on the artistic productions of blacks in northern metropolises, I argue that southern blacks did not merely ride the coattails of northern artists, but took an active role in producing, negotiating, and responding to their own cultural representations.

masters theses

History
Performing arts
African Americans--Study and teaching
Ethnicity--Study and teaching

M.A.

Blackface
Black Performance Art
Fisk Jubilee Singers
Modernity
Nashville
Savannah

History

Cox, Karen

Smith, John David
Hicks, Cheryl

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2015.

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Taylor_uncc_0694N_10871

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:1561