Making History with Music: Miriam Makeba in Guinea
by Yair Hashachar -- Listening to music is not the action most commonly associated with the work of the historian. While the history of music is certainly studied in musicology departments, music is rarely considered a legitimate source for studying non-musical social and cultural dynamics. After all, music does not convey meaning in the way words do: it often does not seem to have a concrete message beyond the lyrics of the song. So, what kind of historical work could music do that texts cannot? In a forthcoming article in the journal Social Dynamics , I attempted to address this very question by demonstrating the utility of the practice of close listening to the study of history, where close listening involves eliciting an interpretation focused on the social and cultural meanings that are embedded in the music. Using this approach in addition to conventional textual sources, I suggest, can help us to decipher cultural spaces and social dynamics that are only partially accessibl...