User talk:Josiemitchell

Welcome
Greetings... Hello, Josiemitchell, and  welcome to Wikipedia! 
 * To get started, click on the green welcome.
 * I hope you like it here and decide to stay! Happy editing! jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Bibliography assignment
--jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

 Hey Josie! Make sure you check our article's talk page. I've started our bibliography, but we have to add a hefty amount of books and articles before Jan. 20th. --Katie322 (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Magical Realism Reconsidered
I'm looking forward to working with your class during the semester - if you have any questions about the project or Wikipedia in general, please feel free to leave me a note at User talk:Awadewit. Wikipedians are here to help you! Awadewit (talk) 23:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Notes about bibliography
Hey Josie! I started our official bibliography on the Alejo Carpentier talk page ( including the sources that you had already listed in the 'bibliografía' section). The sources are in alphabetical order for easy reference and I added a description of how the source might best help our article (ie: sections like 'music' (a great idea of yours!), 'style', etc...) in brackets after each source. I have to go home to look at more books before I add to the shortlist, but please add many more references and add the best ones to the short list before tomorrow. Thanks! Katie322 (talk) 02:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Annotated Bibliography-para 8 de febrero
I know I'm covering the Music with the books: Música y Escrita en Alejo Carpentier and Música en Cuba. Is there some other articles/ books that need to be looked at and summarized?--Josiemitchell (talk) 00:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

BOOKS:

'''Navarro, Gabriel. Música y escritura en Alejo Carpentier. Alicante : Universidad de Alicante, 1999.''' This text will be used to supplement the Themes section on the current Wikipedia page as well as help to outline the new Music section (perhaps a sub-section of the Themes section).

In the prologue of Navarro’s book about Alejo Carpentier’s literary style, the author gives us two general questions that he identifies as Carpentier’s guiding questions in his artistic vision: “What is my identity as a Cuban?”, and, “What is my role as a man?” (page 13). The book is split into two parts: “The Road Lived” and “The Road Created”. The first part outlines Carpentier’s upbringing, travels, European artistic influences and his own connection to a Latin American identity. The text begins by outlining the combined influences of music and an exposure to the Cuban countryside had on the young Carpentier. Seeing the poverty that many in his country endured he gained a respect for Cuba’s hardships. Traveling to Paris in 1928, Carpentier met and befriended several acclaimed surrealist artists. After eleven years in Europe and with an expert understanding of surrealist style, Carpentier moved back to his native Cuba with a renewed nationalistic zeal to define not only what was Cuban, but also what was Latin American. The second part of Navarro’s book, “The Road Created”, discusses Carpentier’s developments as an artist and elements of his style. With surrealist influence and renewed cultural ties to Latin America, Carpentier developed his theory of “lo real maravilloso” where surrealist theory is grounded in Cuban as well as Latin American social and political history. In addition to writing, Carpentier studied music. With a life-long passion and solid academic knowledge of music, Carpentier submersed himself in Cuban music, especially the musical roots that tied Cuba to Africa, Afro-Cubanism. He devoted himself to the country’s ethnomusicology and published a comprehensive study on the topic in La Música en Cuba in 1946. To compile this work was not an easy endeavor, but Carpentier was eager to academically investigate Cuba and also to incorporate his findings into future novels. Following Russian composer Stravinsky’s idea of musical primitivism, Carpentier sought to further explore Cuban identity by reaching out for inspiration into folklore, specifically folklore of African descent. Carpentier quickly turned to other mediums besides prose to portray the Cuban identity, reasoning that ballet and radio drama, relying so heavily on sound, were mediums appropriate to explore what defined Cuban identity. He went on to write four Afro-Cuban inspired ballets with French composer Amadeo Roldán and numerous additional librettos and radio plays. This fascination with music was also translated into Carpentier’s prose writing style. Navarro outlines how Carpentier uses “real sounds”, “musical sounds” and “audible symbols” within his narrative, claiming that Carpentier’s audiences are rarely readers, but rather listeners (page 105). Navarro’s, “Music and Writing in Alejo Carpentier” portrays the line between Carpentier’s written style and musical influence as very thin. Navarro points out that Carpentier once commented on his own writings by saying, “Music is present in all of my work” (page 156). In Carpentier’s artistic vision, music was synonymous with Cuba and to write about Cuba was to write about or use music. One of the most interesting correlations Navarro highlights between music and it’s influence on Carpentier’s about Cuban identity is Carpentier’s fascination with Black Cuban folk music and the ritual involved. Early Cuban music was very closely related to ritual which exists in a timeless setting, emotionally as well as temporally, and this timeless permanence is a basic tenet of Carpentier’s literary style where there is little to distinguish between present and past settings. This connection between Cuban music and Cuban identity directly informs Carpentier’s writing. --Josiemitchell (talk) 00:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

'''Carpentier, Alejo. La música en Cuba. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1972.'''

This text will be used to supplement the Music section/subsection.

La Música en Cuba is an ethno musicological study of Cuba starting from the sixteenth century, the arrival of European explorers, till the present day of publication, the mid twentieth century. The blending of different cultures, black, white, mulattos, criollos and natives, mirrors the blending of Cuba’s two main musical styles, the Christian European music based in Moorish musical tradition and the elemental percussion and rhythm based music of the transported Africans and aboriginal peoples of the island. The book starts by outlining the use of music by Catholic missionaries to assimilate natives and African slaves. As Carpentier describes different types of Cuban music he frequently mentions styles of music that are accompanied with a distinctive dance. For example Carpentier writes about Tango, Habenera, Son, Bamba, Merengue and many other genres of music/dance. The exact roots of these forms are indistinguishable and Carpentier does not attempt to trace the entire lineage of Latin American dance and music styles, but mentions connections that might be plausible. After discussing a more general history of music in Colonized Latin America, Carpentier begins to focus on individual musicians who have influenced Cuba. The main one being Saumell, a lower class criollo pianist from the mid 1800’s who, through popular music, raised musical consciousness to include a Cuban nationalist identity. Carpentier discusses the unique music style, Contradanza, derived from the European contredanse (if you’ve ever seen any film of a Jane Austen book, then you are familiar with this style of dance and music). Fascinated with the element of group dance and the ample room left for musical improvisation, black Cubans quickly integrated it into popular music. Carpentier devotes a lot of his study to exploring the influence African descendants had on Cuban music. He has an entire chapter titled, “Los Negros”. There is little denying the substantial influence that African music had on all of Latin America music and yet Carpentier seems hesitant to start his study there, instead he integrates it later into the study and chooses to start with the advent of European music styles in Cuba. Even with this hesitation he still has no qualms when he says that African influenced music was purposely hidden by the colonist prejudice of 18th and 19th century Cuba. Carpentier then discusses an interesting point with the improvisation inherent in African influenced music that European music does not allow. The improvisation makes room for varied interpretations that catalyze regional differences and therefore regional identity. Idiosyncrasies are able to develop much more readily from unscripted free form music and thus, reasons Carpentier, Cuba has such a varied musical identity.But as he continues through more decades and describes the influences of individual artists on various music styles, he comes to a chapter devoted to Afro-Cubanism, a topic that seems to intrigue him beyond the realm of music. Here he states that to say that black music in Cuba is African is to call white music in Cuba akin to music of the medieval ages. The integration of European and African styles created Cuban music, and though many whites would not like to admit that Cuban music has substantial roots in African music or is so heavily influenced by black Cubans, Carpentier’s research proves there is no way to deny it. Because of the prejudice harboured between white and black cultures, it is often hard to historically research where the two musical cultures collided and influenced each other. The links were hidden and often times many were reluctant to acknowledge them much less unearth them. Carpentier though was eager to do so and by making bold statements about Cuba’s past and integral relationships with different cultures he succeeds in giving back to Cuba an in-depth look at its cultural identity through its very own music. --Josiemitchell (talk) 00:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear Warfare's comments
Hey Josie, Check out our article's discussion page. Nuclear Warfare has left some very helpful hints for us regarding cleaning up the article :) Katie322 (talk) 15:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey Josie, (I left this note on our article's discussion page as well. I wasn't sure which one you'd see first) I hadn't looked at the page before I wrote the above comment (on the article's discussion page) and I see now what you mean by Música en Cuba. My opinion now is that we should keep the annotated Famous Works section. If we can't add many more entries to it by Monday or soon after, then the section is there for any other Wikipedians to add to. Also, El reino de este mundo is arguably his most famous work and then Música en Cuba, as you said, doesn't have a Wiki page so those two are a good start! What are your thoughts? Katie322 (talk) 20:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Alejo Carpentier photo
Hey Josie! I left a note on Ettrig's and Jon's pages asking about the photo as well. Neither of them have answered it yet. I think that we may have to resolve this photo issue before we submit for GA status. But I may try later just to see what the editors say.Katie322 (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey-o! I just nominated our article for GA status and also asked Nuclear Warfare if they wouldn't mind reviewing it. We should still keep workin on it, especially grammar and such. As for the photo, I asked Ettrig, Jon, and NW what they thought of the situation, but so far there has been no replies, so I guess we'll just hold tight on that one. On a side note, Hanne told me last night that she has been editing, but for some reason it is not showing up in the history of the article. She has emailed Jon about this to see what to do. If you do your peer review before we hear why this is happening, then maybe just make a note of it or mention it in your review of Hanne. I have no idea why something like that would happen. Good luck, chica! Katie322 (talk) 17:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Check out my discussion with NuclearWarfare (talk) on his talk page about the Alejo Carpentier photo. He thinks that we can use the photo but we may need to improve our rationale for using it. Problem is: we weren't the ones who uploaded it so we have no idea where this thing came from! :S Katie322 (talk) 19:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Quote section
Hey Josie! Did you add the Navarro quote in the quote section (the third quote)? Mike Christie is wondering if it was *actually* said by Carpentier (seeing as it's in third person). I thought the quote might be from a book you read because you dealt with the music sections (Música y escrita en Alejo Capentier?) and you may still have the book so we could clear this up. If you don't have the book and we can't figure out who did the quote, I suggest that we remove the quote section in its entirety. There are only 3 quotes (which seems too little to merit an entire quote section), and apparently there are other wiki pages dedicated only to quotes. But if you have the book, if you ever did, then maybe we can just add the author of the quote and leave the section for the sake of having it. Let me know what you think! Katie322 (talk) 18:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

yah, we should definitely try to resubmit today, but we still have to fix the original GA suggestions (from jzethol....something or other) becuase he actually did the GA review. I'll be workin on it too. Try to put 'done' or something before a point that you've completed so that we each know what the other person has done :) Pitter patter, let's get at 'er!! lol! Katie322 (talk) 18:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey! yah, we were both editing at the same time so I left for a while cuz I figured we were doing the same thing! lol! So you've reformatted the further reading section and I stuck all the further readings which were *actually* used in the article into the references section. Looks like all the points from Mike Christie and the GA editor have been covered. I'm gonna resubmit it now. Let me know if you have a problem with that. Katie322 (talk) 20:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't heard anything back from either Hanne OR Jon regarding the malfunction, so I would just hand-in your peer review and make a note that you are aware that something happened with Wikipedia disallowing Hanne to sign in (or something to that effect). I renominated the article. The place that it directed me to for renomination was a little sketchy so I left a note for our GA editor to let me know if it is the incorrect place to resubmit our article. I'll keep an eye on it. Good job, Josie! Katie322 (talk) 21:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)