Events
GIEHCM Seminar | Listening to the Empire: the sonification of otherness in the Portuguese African colonies, 1870-1910
PERMANENT SEMINAR IN HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES IN MUSIC
The Permanent Seminar of the research group Historical and Cultural Studies in Music of INET-md intends to be a forum where all its members (integrated and collaborators), as well as other invited researchers from the academic, cultural and artistic circles, may present their work and discuss ongoing projects and research.
19-11-2024 | 6 pm | NOVA FCSH, Colégio Almada Negreiros (Campolide) | Room SE1 | Zoom
Free access, in person and online.
Sala Zoom
Meeting ID: 925 2288 4639
Pass code: 749191
Listening to the Empire: the sonification of otherness in the Portuguese African colonies, 1870-1910
João Silva | INET-md/NOVA FCSH
The intensification of colonialism, evidenced by many European and American expeditions to inland Africa, marked the end of the 19th century. The so-called Berlin Conference changed the rules for occupying Central Africa; this vision spread to other places. The 1890 British Ultimatum shook Portuguese patriotism and raised awareness to the country’s colonies. Then, evolutionism and positivism joined forces to create and develop the idea of biological race. This paper addresses ethnological and anthropological materials from the Portuguese African colonies in the Age of Empire until the First Portuguese Republic. A varied mixture of people collected and articulated a large amount of information concerning African people when immersive fieldwork had not yet been established as the dominant approach in the social sciences. The references to sound contained in these works are scarce and few explorers used the phonograph, a novelty at the time. I examine the European construction of the sonic otherness of Africa through ethnocentric mediators between the familiar and the ‘exotic,’ such as texts, musical transcriptions, engravings, and photographs.
João Silva | Received his PhD in Musicology from Newcastle University. His research focuses on popular entertainment and its relationships with modernity, nationalism, historiography, technology, and everyday life. He published in books and journals such as Phonographic Encounters: Mapping Transnational Cultures of Sound and Cultural Histories of Noise, Sound and Listening in Europe, 1300–1918, Popular Music, and Radical Musicology. In 2016, Oxford University Press released his monograph Entertaining Lisbon: Music, Theater, and Modern Life in the Late 19th Century. Silva works as a program annotator for institutions like Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Casa da Música, where he develops music appreciation programmes and digital learning platforms. He participates in the Scientific Board of Museu Nacional da Música and the artistic direction of the Festival Internacional de Música de Espinho. Silva is Editor of the Journal of World Popular Music.
