Whether referred to as mermaid, usalka, mami wata, or by some other name, and whether considered an imaginary being or merely a person with extraordinary abilities, the siren is the remarkable creature that has inspired music and its representations from ancient Greece to present-day Africa and Latin America. This book, co-edited by a historical musicologist and an ethnomusicologist, brings together leading scholars and some talented newcomers in classics, music, media studies, literature, and cultural studies to consider the siren and her multifaceted relationships to music across human time and geography.
Author(s): Linda Phyllis Austern, Inna Naroditskaya
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 440
Cover......Page 1
C O N T E N TS......Page 6
acknowledgments......Page 8
Introduction: Singing Each to Each......Page 10
1. Sirens in Antiquity and the Middle Ages......Page 25
2. ‘‘Teach Me to Heare Mermaides Singing’’:Embodiments of (Acoustic) Pleasure and Danger in the Modern West......Page 61
3. Devils, Daydreams, and Desire: Siren Traditions andMusical Creation in the Central-Southern Andes......Page 114
4. ‘‘Sweet aluring harmony’’: Heavenly and Earthly Sirens inSixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Literary and Visual Culture......Page 149
5. The Sirens, the Epicurean Boat, and the Poetry of Praise......Page 185
6. ‘‘Longindyingcall’’: Of Music, Modernity, and the Sirens......Page 203
7. Russian Rusalkas and Nationalism: Water, Power, and Women......Page 225
8. Rheinsirenen: Loreley and Other Rhine Maidens......Page 259
9. The Mermaid of the Meyhane:The Legend of a Greek Singer in a Turkish Tavern......Page 282
10. Siren Serenades: Music for Mami Wata and OtherWater Spirits in Africa......Page 303
11. The Navel, the Corporate, the Contradictory:Pop Sirens at the Twenty-first Century......Page 326
12. The Cocktail Siren in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet......Page 358
bibliography......Page 380
list of contributors......Page 418
index......Page 422
