Song of Exile

The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137

Inbunden, Engelska, 2016

AvDavid W. Stowe,Michigan State University) Stowe, David W. (Professor of Religious Studies, Professor of Religious Studies,David W Stowe

469 kr

Beställningsvara. Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar. Fri frakt för medlemmar vid köp för minst 249 kr.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." The line that begins Psalm 137 is one of the most lyrical of the Hebrew Bible, and has been used since its genesis to evoke the grief and protest of exiled, displaced, or marginalized communities. The psalm is most directly a product of the Babylonian exile--the roughly fifty-year period after Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's army and many of its leading Judeans taken northeast into captivity. Despite the psalm's popularity, little has been written about its reception during the more than 2,500 years since that period. In Babylon Revisited David Stowe addresses this gap using a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach that includes textual analysis, historical overview, and a study of the psalm's place in popular culture. Stowe locates its use in the American Revolution and the Civil Rights movement, and internationally by anti-colonial Jamaican Rastafari and immigrants from Ireland, Korea, and Cuba. He studies musical references ranging from the Melodians Rivers of Babylon to the score in Kazakh film Tulpan. Based on numerous interviews with musicians, theologians, and writers, Stowe reconstructs the rich and varied reception history of this widely used, yet mysterious text.The book is broken up into three parts that closely examine each of the psalm's stanzas. Stowe concludes by exploring the often ignored final words: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Usually excised from liturgy and forgotten by scholars, Stowe finds these words echoed in modern occurrences of genocide or ethnic cleansing, and more generally in the culture of vengeance that has existed in North America from the earliest conflicts with Native Americans. Exploring the presence and absence of these words in modern culture is the culmination of Stowe's study as he weaves together the fascinating story of how Psalm 137 has both shaped and been shaped by our understanding of violence, pain, oppression, and justice.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2016-05-19
Mått155 x 239 x 22 mm
Vikt454 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor232
FörlagOUP USA
ISBN9780190466831

Tillhör följande kategorier

Judiska heliga texter inom Filosofi och religion
Biblar inom Filosofi och religion
Religion: allmänt inom Filosofi och religion
Judendom inom Filosofi och religion
Kristendom inom Filosofi och religion

David W. Stowe teaches English and Religious Studies at Michigan State University, where he is interim chair of the English Department. During the 2012-13 academic year, Stowe held a research fellowship at Yale's Institute of Sacred Music. His most recent book is No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism. His previous book, How Sweet the Sound: Music in the Spiritual Lives of Americans won the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP.

Part One: History1) Mapping History2) Comprehending Migration3) Babylonia4) In Nebuchudnezzar's Court5) By the Kebar6) People of the Land7) Jeremiah8) Lamentations9) Strange Lands10) Existential Exile11) Rivers of Watertown12) Melodious RiversPart Two: Memory13) New World Babylon14) American Jeremiah15) Africa as New Israel16) Echoes of Roland Hayes17) Footnotes to C.L. Franklin18) Moses and Jeremiah 19) Moses and Jeremiah20) Forcing Memory21) Wood StreetPart Three: Forgetting22) Jedwabne23) Revisiting a Vanished World24) Blaming Victims25) Thirsting for Vengeance26) New World Captivity27) Better Angels28) Holocaust Songs29) Sepulchral Memory30) After ExileNotesBibliographyIndex