Race, Hegemony, and the Birth of Rock & Roll

The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock & Roll On his Grammy winning album, Hard Again, McKinley Morganfield (a.k.a. “Muddy Waters”) sings his song The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock & Roll.1 What are the racial and social implications of this rebirth? In this study, I will argue that the cultural context during the birth of Rock & Roll was such that Blues music had to be “reborn” in order to enter into the predominantly white mainstream. From the perspective of a Blues musician, Morganfield’s use of the idea of rebirth is a subtle apology for the Blues, preserving the filiation and downplaying the issue of racial division. However, a more critical analysis of the situation questions the aptitude of rebirth as a metaphor for the process of change that was required of (Rhythm &) Blues music before it could be embraced as a mainstream art form. Contemporary scholarship suggests a range of terms as more accurate descriptors of this transformative process, including appropriation, assimilation, blanching, and subsumption.2 We can add terms like “translation” and “renaming” to this list, each bringing a slightly different perspective to the issue.3 By attempting to recognize a convergence of unseen or “behind the scenes” forces that cause this transformation to take place, the current study seeks to demonstrate their consequences not simply with respect to the development of popular music, but with respect to the larger relationship between popular culture and race in the latter half of the twentieth century

Robustness of Measurement, discrimination games and accessible information

We introduce a way of quantifying how informative a quantum measurement is, starting from a resource-theoretic perspective. This quantifier, which we call the robustness of measurement, describes how much `noise' must be added to a measurement before it becomes completely uninformative. We show that this geometric quantifier has operational significance in terms of the advantage the measurement provides over guessing at random in an suitably chosen state discrimination game. We further show that it is the single-shot generalisation of the accessible information of a certain quantum-to-classical channel. Using this insight, we also show that the recently-introduced robustness of coherence is the single-shot generalisation of the accessible information of an ensemble. Finally we discuss more generally the connection between robustness-based measures, discrimination problems and single-shot information theory.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Entrepreneurship: Theory and Application in a University Arts Management Setting

This article explores the applicability of entrepreneurship as an academic course of study with respect to the broader area of arts management pedagogy. A historical overview of primary texts ranging from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries serves as a preface for a discipline-based perspective of its twentieth-century articulations. Primary theoretical exponents reveal the economic, sociological, and psychological underpinnings of entrepreneurship as it is developed as an academic topic. Mahoney and Michael’s subjectivist theory informs the relationship between entrepreneurship and the study of creative and cultural industries. Recommendations for specific pedagogical application include structuring and content for in-class activities and outreach projects. In all cases the use of analogy, non-linear thinking, and the critique of textbook decision-making protocol supplement the implementation of outreach programs including practicum, externship, as well as study abroad, student leadership, and alumni-involvement initiatives

Coping with Narcissism: Causes, Effects, and Solutions for the Artist Manager

There is a morbid fascination with the spectacular crash of celebrity in our culture. Examples abound of television documentaries and motion pictures that share a common plot regarding artists in the entertainment industry: the lean years of sacrifice provide an opportunity for success which then gives way to entitlement, hubris, alcohol and drug use all followed by a spectacular crash—and in some cases a reckoning and comeback. Are unwitting artists doomed to follow this pre-written script? Or is this a ready-made plot on which scriptwriters fall back like some crutch? This article looks at artistic development as a negotiation between an innate sense of self and a more commercial one. We will give special attention to live performance as an area of activity that presents psychological pitfalls to the artist. We will use theories of narcissism to reveal how fragile self-esteem can lead to the self-destructive behaviors too commonly found among artists who achieve, but are unable to sustain, success. Ultimately, an understanding of the psychology at work in this all too familiar scenario benefits us with solid remedies

Alain de Roucy et la voix anonyme de \u3cem\u3eLa Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise\u3c/em\u3e

La Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise, écrite entre 1212 et 1219, est le produit de deux auteurs successifs: Guillaume de Tudèle et un autre écrivain resté anonyme. Ces deux auteurs écrivent non seulement à chaud, mais ils sont partisans de factions opposées: Guillaume de Tudèle soutient la position des croisés français alors que l\u27auteur anonyme montre la perspective méridionale. Loin d\u27amoindrir la différence entre les deux perspectives comme l\u27a fait Michel Zink, cette étude considère au contraire l\u27anonymat comme une stratégie qui souligne les rapports entre la Chanson et un champ de bataille.2 Notons comment l\u27Anonyme s\u27attaque aux valeurs mises en place par Guillaume de Tudèle en manipulant les mots proférés par le baron croisé Alain de Roucy lors des épisodes de conseil (où l\u27un des chefs militaires demande l\u27avis de ses barons pour prendre une décision). Cependant, si l\u27on interprète l\u27anonymat lui-même comme une ruse qui veut tromper par son caractère indirect, il faudrait réconcilier le mode de discours avec ses propres valeurs. Autrement dit, le désaccord qui résulte de l\u27emploi de l\u27anonymat pour critiquer le style indirect de ses ennemis risque de faire tomber ce deuxième auteur dans son propre piège

Malcolm Chisholm: An Evaluation of Traditional Audio Engineering

The career of longtime Chicago area audio engineer and notable Chess Records session recorder Malcolm Chisholm (1929-2003) serves as a window for assessing the stakes of technological and cultural developments around the birth of Rock & Roll. Chisholm stands within the traditional art-versus-commerce debate as an example of the post-World War II craftsman ethos marginalized by an incoming, corporate-determined paradigm. Contextual maps locate Chisholm’s style and environment of audio production as well as his impact within the rebranding of electrified Blues music into mainstream genres like Rock music. Interviews of former students and professional associates provide first-hand accounts of core philosophies, approaches, and equipment preferences. Opposing recording techniques including isolation versus ambience, live recording versus overdubbing, and the overall tolerance of imperfection distinguish the modern and traditional approaches

Virtual qubits, virtual temperatures, and the foundations of thermodynamics

We argue that thermal machines can be understood from the perspective of `virtual qubits' at `virtual temperatures': The relevant way to view the two heat baths which drive a thermal machine is as a composite system. Virtual qubits are two-level subsystems of this composite, and their virtual temperatures can take on any value, positive or negative. Thermal machines act upon an external system by placing it in thermal contact with a well-selected range of virtual qubits and temperatures. We demonstrate these claims by studying the smallest thermal machines. We show further that this perspective provides a powerful way to view thermodynamics, by analysing a number of phenomena. This includes approaching Carnot efficiency (where we find that all machines do so essentially by becoming equivalent to the smallest thermal machines), entropy production in irreversible machines, and a way to view work in terms of negative temperature and population inversion. Moreover we introduce the idea of "genuine" thermal machines and are led to considering the concept of "strength" of work.Comment: v2: Published version. 15 pages, 8 figure

The Refugees We Are: Solidarity, Asylum, and Critique in the European Constitutional Imagination

This Article aims to reimagine post-national legal solidarity. It does so by bringing debates over Habermasian constitutional theory to bear on the evolving use of mutual recognition and mutual trust in the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ), particularly in the context of European asylum law and reforms to the Dublin Regulation. Insofar as critiques of Habermasian “constitutional patriotism” apply to the principle of mutual trust, the Article suggests why post-national solidarity requires fallibilism and dynamic responsiveness that exceed formalized rules of forbearance and respect. On this revised view, legal solidarity guarantees a particular form of adjudication through which individual litigants in a particular case challenge the transnational structural conditions that give rise to individual harm. Because it acknowledges that violations of individual rights are always potentially or in part the result of a collective systemic failure, this conception of solidarity restores meaning to the transformative “transfer” of sovereignty that post-national law had promised. In the field of asylum law, I detail how this application of solidarity would offer a much-needed corrective to structural imbalances in the existing Dublin regime. I conclude with reflections on the principle’s application in additional fields of EU law, as well

‘Safe third countries’ and our obligations to others

The devastating images of chaos and suffering in Afghanistan have left an indelible mark on citizens and policy-makers in the West. They have made the evacuation of those Afghans who served alongside U.S. and European militaries a moral obligation—and raised the question whether that obligation must extend, as well, to any and all Afghans who are imperiled by the return of Taliban rule