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mblynn / Songs-of-Colonization

Analysis of themes and motifs in songs used by colonizers
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Project Update 1/31 #1

Open mblynn opened 4 years ago

mblynn commented 4 years ago

Our group has decided to move forward with working on the analysis of songs used by colonial soldiers. We are interested in these song’s lyrics as a way to interpret the worldview of the soldiers at the time and how that relates to the violent and horrific actions they perpetrated. We have identified the German colonial soldiers in Namibia, whose songs portray romanticized nationalistic and racist views of the people against whom they committed genocide, as one of our groups. We plan to have our first meeting this Friday, where we hope to identify a second group in order to draw comparisons between different colonial policies. We also hope to identify some of the songs we will be looking at and start to pull out themes and motifs from them. I have ordered a book from the library that has some potential options of songs for us.

charlietaylor98 commented 4 years ago

This is such a unique idea, and it sounds like you're getting some direction. By a second group, do you mean another colonial power? It could be interesting to draw connections between language used in official documents of colonial powers and the language used in these songs; I'm wondering if the German presence in Namibia was notably militaristic, and if that impacts the songs.

crissyshan commented 4 years ago

This topic is very interesting, and definitely such a unique angle from which to look at colonization and violence (at least from my perspective). My group is also using song as a window into understanding ideology and a means of comparing/contrasting identities over time and space. I think our groups will have a lot to share and discuss with each other going forward through these projects! At this point, I am just wondering if you will be looking at these songs in their original language or if you are having to deal with the issue of translation? I know the question of looking at songs in translation has already caused my group to hit a snag with our project, and having to limit ourselves to only those songs in the foreign languages we already know can be frustrating. I am just wondering how this is going for your group or how you are dealing with it! Looking forward to hearing more about this project.