Description
Book SynopsisThis book approaches Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking cultural production of Hamilton: An American Musical as a rhetorical text with implications for contemporary U.S. politics. The contributors to this volume utilize training in rhetorical criticism and performance studies to analyze the musical in relation to three broad themes: national public memory, social and cultural identity, and democracy and social change. Each chapter offers unique insights on its own accord while the volume as a whole explores multiple facets of the musical, from the theater performance and the soundtrack to the musical's circulation in public discourse and the Chicago exhibition. The diversity of topics and methods means that the volume is suitable for students of rhetoric and U.S. politics and even the HamilFans will learn something new.
Trade Review"This edited collection offers engaging analyses of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s politically complex and massively popular
Hamilton, addressing its contributions to and contestations of public memory about the nation-state, cultural discourses about race and gender, and political rhetoric about social movements and change. Foregrounding the pedagogical value of the musical, this book will itself be a valuable resource for scholars and students of rhetoric, performance, and popular culture. Just as the musical mashes up a variety of musical and historical sensibilities, this collection brings together a diverse range of scholarly perspectives including rhetorical, critical race, and intersectional feminist theories and offers close readings of not only lyrics and music but also of a range of historical intertexts that have shaped and been shaped by
Hamilton. The essays are clear and compelling and will appeal to critics and fans of the musical alike."—Claire Sisco King, Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University; Editor,
Women’s Studies in CommunicationTable of ContentsAcknowledgments – Sara A. Mehltretter Drury/Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury/Henry Egan: Introduction: Hamilton as Cultural and Rhetorical Phenomenon – Jade C. Huell/Lindsay A. Jenkins: The I/Eye of History: Performing Public Memory, Utopia, and Critical Nostalgia in Hamilton – Michaelah Reynolds/Ryan Neville-Shepard: Hamilton and the Entelechy of the American Dream – Sara A. Mehltretter Drury/James Anthony Williams Jr.: Exhibiting Hamilton: History, Memory, and Musical Theater – Christopher Bell: Hamilton as Cosmogonic Myth – John Clyde Russell: Hamilton and Public Memory of the Founding Era: Myth, Humanization, and Comforting Whiteness in "Post-Racial" America – Emily Berg Paup: Patriarchy and Power: A Feminist Critique of Hamilton – Brandon Inabinet: Bondage and Circulation – Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury: Political Niceties and Rap in Hamilton – Mark P. Orbe: Diverse Offerings for Understanding U.S. Politics: Analyzing the Invitational Rhetoric of Hamilton and President Barack Obama – Nancy J. Legge: The Rhetorical Significance of Hamilton in Public Protests – Note on Contributors – Index.
