Engendering Song: Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa Albanian Weddings - Book Review,
by Jane C. Sugarman

Book Description For Prespa Albanians, both at home in Macedonia and in the diaspora, the most opulent, extravagant, and socially significant events of any year are wedding ceremonies. During days and weeks of festivities, wedding celebrants interact largely through singing, defining and renegotiating as they do so the very structure of their social world and establishing a profound cultural touchstone for Prespa communities around the world.
Combining photographs, song texts, and vibrant recordings of the music with her own evocative descriptions, ethnomusicologist Jane C. Sugarman focuses her account of Prespa weddings on notions of gendered identity, demonstrating the capacity of singing to generate and transform relations of power within Prespa society. Engendering Song is an innovative theoretical work, with a scholarly importance extending far beyond southeast European studies. It offers unique and timely contributions to the analysis of music and gender, music in diaspora cultures, and the social constitution of self and subjectivity.
Card catalog description For Prespa Albanians, both at home in Macedonia and in the diaspora, the most opulent, extravagant, and socially significant events of any year are wedding celebrations. Combining photographs, song texts, and vibrant recordings of the music with her own evocative descriptions, ethnomusicologist Jane C. Sugarman focuses her account of Prespa weddings on notions of gendered identity, demonstrating the capacity of singing to generate and transform relations of power within Prespa society.
About the Author Jane C. Sugarman is assistant professor of music at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
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