America and the Musical Unconscious

Music occupies a peculiar role in the field of American Studies. It is undoubtedly recognized as an important form of cultural production, yet the field continues to privilege textual and visual forms of art as its objects of examination. The essays collected in this volume seek to adjust this imbalance by placing music center stage while still acknowledging its connections to the fields of literary and visual studies that engage with the specifically American cultural landscape. In doing so, they proffer the concept of the 'musical unconscious' as an analytical tool of understanding the complexities of the musical production of meanings in various social, political, and technological contexts, in reference to country, queer punk, jazz, pop, black metal, film music, blues, carnival music, Muzak, hip-hop, experimental electronic music, protest and campaign songs, minimal music, and of course the kazoo. Contributions by Hanjo Berressem, Christian Broecking, Martin Butler, Christof Decker, Mario Dunkel, Benedikt Feiten, Paola Ferrero, Jurgen Grandt, Julius Greve, Christian Hanggi, Jan Niklas Jansen, Thoren Opitz, Sascha Pohlmann, Arthur Sabatini, Christian Schmidt, Bjorn Sonnenberg-Schrank, Gunter Suß, and Katharina Wiedlack.