You may wonder where I've been and why I haven't been posting. First, I was teaching at the University of Arizona, which took all my time. Then I moved to Berlin, where I am at the moment, working on improving my mediocre German. In Feburary I was indeed back in the DR for my usual carnival-season activities with Los Confraternos. And then......
I finished my dissertation.
I defended on Sept. 5 and my degree was apparently awarded last week.
Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it myself.
Anyway, it's titled Merengue típico in Dominican transnational communities: Gender, geography, migration, and memory in a traditional music. 700+ pages all about your, and my, favorite music. I need to get to work on turning it into a book, but frankly, I'm a little worn out and need a dissertation vacation. Anyway, anyone who wants to tackle it, feel free to email me and we'll discuss.
I'll next be in the DR in January-February for, you guessed it, some carnival research. In the meantime, I'll try to do a better job of keeping all you faithful readers up to date.
By the way, if you haven't taken a look at or listened to the tipico CD I co-produced for Smithsonian Folkways, what are you waiting for?? It has all my favorite stuff on it and I wrote the liner notes myself. They are highly educational and you can even download them for free. I don't earn any royalties from it, but La India Canela does, so you might as well buy the CD while you're at it.
Here's the album: http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemID=3206
And here you can watch a video about it: http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/feature_28A.aspx
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4 comments:
You co-produced La India Canela? That album rocks! Smithsonian's new Vallenata record is also brilliant.
Please come to Canada and tell us about your book-to-be!
I had a mild back and forth with a gentleman from México with me insisting some Merengue had accordions. I knew you had my back so I eventually let it go. But we happily played some from your record on our radio show that week!
Congratulations on the degree! You must feel either fantastic or a little bit lost because you've put all of your energy into the dissertation and defense for months and suddenly it's over (this is based entirely on how I felt when I finished grad school -- it was jarring to suddenly feel so aimless in some ways). I hope you're enjoying the many pleasures of Berlin in your newfound free time.
I don't have the Folkways CD yet, but I'll remedy that ASAP. I need merengue tipico to buoy me while I'm slogging through Kant's Critique of Judgment (blah).
My sincere congratulations on getting your degree! Hope you celebrated as much as you possibly could.
And, as Bruce says, I wish you could come to Canada. Not only to tell us about your books but to enjoy some of Montreal's music scenes.
Congratulations on the dissertation! I'll pass the good word along to the WSHSO. We're sounding pretty good these days. There's a link to our Myspace page on my blog. Anyway, just wanted to say hi and congrats!
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