| Title | Sephardi Orature and the Myth of Judeo-Spanish Hispanidad |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Vanessa Paloma Elbaz(author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0405.08 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0405/chapters/10.11647/obp.0405.08 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Vanessa Paloma Elbaz; |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2025-01-31 |
| Long abstract | Historically scholars have linked Sephardi orature as a straight and unique line to Spanish literary culture. Beginning in the late nineteenth-century, philologists studied Sephardi oral literature as a vestige of Spanish medieval memory which they presented as almost “frozen” in time after the expulsion (Menéndez Pidal (1956, 1973), Benichou (1968), Alvar (1969, 1971), Armistead & Silverman (1973, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1986), Pomeroy (2005) etc.). Three generations of studies on Romances present an almost completely homogeneous picture of Hispanidad as the driving force behind a rich and dynamic singing tradition, mainly transmitted by Sephardi women throughout the Mediterranean diaspora. Quoting examples from 16th and 17th century printed romanceros, as well as the remaining oral tradition in Spain, the Spanish link is undeniable. However, the Spanish colonial project used this tradition and its “hispanidad” to buttress their colonial expansion in various geographic locations, most notably in northern Morocco. The fact that it was Sephardi women’s orature that was used to support the ideology behind this colonial project is telling in itself. The reality of what Sephardim sing, conserve and transmit is a layered interweaving of local, multilingual oral repertoire built over traces of historic material gathered by the community throughout its migrations, plus newly adapted pieces from current cultural influences. This reality is wider than the one presented by most scholarship which often restricts it to the romancero tradition, playing into World Literature hegemonic tropes which link romance texts to philology and Spanish literature. The remaining non-Romance oral repertoire from this community is generally confined to anthropological and ethnomusicological study, not reaching the status of a valuable literary contribution. This chapter deconstructs and analyses the asymmetries inherent in the ways Moroccan Sephardim see and interact with their orature compared with the manner in which Western academia has studied and written about it. |
| Page range | pp. 233–260 |
| Print length | 28 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
Vanessa Paloma Elbaz is Senior Research Associate of Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge and Research Associate at its Faculty of Music. Previously a Senior Research Fulbright Fellow, a Marie Slodowska Curie Fellow, and a Posen fellow, among others, she has published extensively on the sonic histories of the Jewish diasporas from the Iberian peninsula. Her Ph.D. is from the Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, and her M.M. from Indiana University Bloomington. She began her studies at the Andes University in her native Bogotá, Colombia. In 2012 she founded KHOYA: Jewish Morocco Sound Archive in Casablanca. A Board member of the Jewish Music Institute, the Tangier American Institute for Moroccan Studies and the Institute for Tolerance Studies, she is the Chair of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance Mediterranean Music Studies Group. Her first monograph on Sephardi women’s voices in Northern Morocco is due to be published with Brill, she is editing a volume on Sound, Music and Memory for the British Academy, and a special journal issue on Judeo-Spanish songbooks for les presses de l’INALCO.