Friday, April 2 2021 3PM Eastern Time
Zoom link below.
The Department of Music and the Center for Ethnomusicology are pleased to present a joint colloquium presentation by Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones (Indiana University) on Friday, April 2, 2021, at 3PM Eastern Time. Dr. Jones’s talk is entitled:
"I am Delivert!": Black Musical Masculinities and The Art of Enflaming Worship
Abstract: In November 2014, the 107th Church of God in Christ (COGIC) convocation video footage of Andrew Caldwell’s testimony of deliverance was released to the media, prompting discourses surrounding the nature of deliverance rituals in Pentecostal churches during altar call. Within historically black Pentecostal churches that showcase gospel music, “deliverance” is a term that traditionally refers to a release from spiritual oppression and a separation from the sinful lifestyle. While deliverance is used to characterize many types of spiritual healing, many Black congregations and gospel music fans deploy the term in a frequently gendered manner referring to a man’s “struggle” to resist homosexuality. Drawing from Black male musician’s narratives and recordings since the late 1980s, this chapter from Dr. Jones' forthcoming book Flaming?: The Peculiar Theo-Politics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance, will explore a social history of anxieties surrounding the performances of formerly gay men's deliverance testimonies in Pentecostal gospel music scenes.
Biography: Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is an assistant professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and faculty director of the Global Pop Music Initiative at Indiana University (Bloomington). Dr. Jones is a board member of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM, a member of the strategic planning task force for the American Musicological Society (AMS), and a co-chair of the Music and Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Additionally, as a performer-scholar, she consults museums, conservatories, seminaries, and arts organizations on curriculum, live and virtual event programming, and content development. Dr. Jones’ book Flaming?: The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance (Oxford University Press) breaks ground by analyzing the role of gospel music-making in constructing and renegotiating gender identity among black men. Her research interests extend to global pop music, musics of the African diaspora, music and food, the music industry and the marketplace, and anti-oppressive ways of listening to black women. Raised as a Pentecostal inflected, non-denomination Christian, Rev. Dr. Jones is fourth-generation preacher on both sides of her family. A little-known fact is that Dr. Alisha Lola Jones and her sister Rev. Angela Marie Jones are co-owners of Paradise Media Group, a Black women-owned radio company based in Oxford and Henderson, NC continuing the multi-media work pioneered by their parents Rev. Dr. Alvin Augustus Jones and Rev. Dr. Martha Butler Jones. Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is newlywed to Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner, her partner in both ministry and love. For more information, please visit DrAlisha.com.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/j/91429992606?pwd=emgvNUt4cER0bFk4dVdEbHFOS2VlUT09
Meeting ID: 914 2999 2606
Passcode: 325141
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