Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma

Annegret Fauser · Michael A. Figueroa

Oct 2020 · University of Michigan Press

About this ebook

Public commemorations of various kinds are an important part of how groups large and small acknowledge and process injustices and tragic events. Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma looks at the roles music can play in public commemorations of traumatic events that range from the Armenian genocide and World War I to contemporary violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the #sayhername protests. Whose version of a traumatic historical event gets told is always a complicated question, and music adds further layers to this complexity, particularly music without words. The three sections of this collection look at different facets of musical commemorations and reenactments, focusing on how music can mediate, but also intensify responses to social injustice; how reenactments and their use of music are shifting (and not always toward greater social effectiveness); and how claims for musical authenticity are politicized in various ways. By engaging with critical theory around memory studies and performance studies, the contributors to this volume explore social justice, in, and through music.

About the author

Annegret Fauser is Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michael A. Figueroa is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.