At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris

At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris

At Home in Our Sounds illustrates the effect jazz music had on the enormous social challenges Europe faced in the aftermath of World War I. Examining the ways African American, French Antillean, and French West African artists reacted to the heightened visibility of racial difference in Paris during this era, author Rachel Anne Gillett addresses fundamental cultural questions that continue to resonate today: Could one be both black and French? Was black solidarity more important than national and colonial identity? How could French culture include the experiences and contributions of Africans and Antilleans? Providing a well-rounded view of black reactions to jazz in interwar Paris, At Home in Our Sounds deals with artists from highly educated women like the Nardal sisters of Martinique, to the working black musicians performing at all hours throughout the city. In so doing, the book places this phenomenon in its historical and political context and shows how music and music-making constituted a vital terrain of cultural politics--one that brought people together around pianos and on the dancefloor, but that did not erase the political, regional, and national differences between them. "A compelling and original study which will be of great interest to scholars and students of French social and cultural history, and those interested in questions of race more broadly. It raises crucial and timely questions about what it means to belong to a nation, and what it means to be French." -- Antonia Wimbush, H-Black-Europe, H-Net Reviews "Highly Recommended." -- CHOICE "Gillett's superb analysis of jazz-age Paris reveals the polyphony of voices, music, and activism in the metropole. Her work reveals how the popularity of jazz among French audiences provided a point of contestation for colonial subjects to articulate their difference and belonging through rhythm and movement." -- Jonathyne Briggs, Professor of History, Indiana University Northwest, and author of Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Popular Music, 1958-1980 "An in-depth study of how kindred music-making traditions affected divergent cultural and political identities among the Black African, Caribbean, and African American networks in interwar Paris, this work offers richly engaging material for both connoisseurs of this story and newcomers." -- Allison Blakely, Professor of European and Comparative History, Emeritus, Boston University "Gillett's book is an important contribution to the interdisciplinary body of work focused on race and culture in interwar France, as she offers a critical recontextualization of Antillean perspectives and moreover brings greater attention to Black women's own contributions to this discursive space. While the book addresses the impact of new technologies, I wondered at times if a longer discussion of the material dimensions of music and performance (as well as the circuits of capitalism) might have deepened the already thoughtful discussion of power, empire, and race." -- Celeste Day Moore, Journal of Modern History Rachel Anne Gillett lectures in cultural history at the University of Utrecht and writes about race, popular culture, and empire. She focuses on the French Empire but her interests range from Marvel movies, to early jazz, to rugby. Her writing appears in blogs and magazines as well as in academic literature and she can be heard on "Unsettling Knowledge", a podcast about how empire shaped European societies. She is deeply interested in how popular culture reflects and influences social and political life and has pursued that theme wherever she has lived and worked, from New Zealand, to America, to the Netherlands.