Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?: Jesus and Song in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Popular Culture

Abstract

In examining the extensive, shifting constructs of music, culture, and identity, I am sure to get things wrong. To prevent as many problems as possible, I have identified three organizational devices (centripetal tools) to help guide and shape my questions: representation, reflection, and evolution. These were designed to keep this project on track and organized and to make a confusing, scattered topic seem a little more manageable. Within representation, I ask how people represented Jesus. When they sang and spoke about him, what did they say? How did they describe him? What did he do and say and look like? In reflection, I ask what these representations demonstrated about the people and the culture that created them. And in the evolution category, I asked how these representations and reflections changed over time. Using these concepts, I was able to navigate through my sources with confidence and a clear path.