Literary Soundscapes: Nationalism and U.S. Literature, 1890-1940 Shawn M. Higgins, PhD University of Connecticut, 2016 Abstract In a post-Civil War imaginary marked by increased racialization, vehement nativism, and expanding imperialism, a new debate over national identity converged on the terrain of so- termed “American music.” These aural and auditory frames foreground this dissertation, which takes seriously the ways in which writers, playwrights, and lyricists identified new possibilities for and the limitations of dominant-held notions of political and cultural citizenship through the interconnected spheres of literature and sound. Such productions, which converge on the notion of “American music,” divergently echoed, reflected, and refracted political contestations over who did and did not belong to the U.S. nation-state. This multiracial, multiethnic sound studies project, which begins at the turn-of-the-twentieth century and concludes with the Great Depression, explores the integral sites of “American-ness” as an unstable and dynamic concept in the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, Israel Zangwill, Irving Berlin, Raymond Egan, and Américo Paredes. i Literary Soundscapes: Nationalism and U.S. Literature, 1890-1940 Shawn M. Higgins B.A., University of California, Riverside, 2009 M.A., Columbia University, 2011 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2016 ii Copyright by Shawn M. Higgins 2016 iii APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Literary Soundscapes: Nationalism and U.S. Literature, 1890-1940 Presented by Shawn Matthew Higgins, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor: _________________________________________________________________ Cathy Schlund-Vials Associate Advisor: ______________________________________________________________ Martha Cutter Associate Advisor: ______________________________________________________________ Christopher Vials University of Connecticut 2016 iv Acknowledgments We didn’t read a lot in my house growing up. We listened to things. I fell asleep as a kid to the lulling sound of television static, of ceiling fans, and of hamster wheel squeaks. Every one of my family members’ music tastes had an impact on my young ears. Van Morrison, The Beach Boys, Metallica, Bob Marley, New Kids on the Block, Weird Al Yankovic, Dr. Dre, Oingo Boingo, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Lee Hooker, Pantera – all heard in the same house on any given day. Then, as my friends and I reached the age that we began buying our own CDs, that exposure lead to an obsession. More hip-hop, more electronica, more jazz, more reggae, more everything. Except country – that slide guitar sound just doesn’t sit right with me for some reason. My dad tried changing that by bringing me to Leon Russell concerts. I have to admit that I enjoyed the shows, but probably only because I was spending time with my dad. I am indebted to Annemarie van Roessel, assistant curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, for her guidance through my archival research for Chapter Two. Similarly, I owe great thanks to Christina Bleyer, Head of Special Collections and Senior Archivist for the Américo Paredes Papers held at the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. I traveled to Austin for archival research for Chapter Four with financial support from the University of Connecticut’s El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies in the form of a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award. I was also lucky enough to be awarded partial travel funding for many of my conference presentations of sections of this dissertation by the University of Connecticut English department. On college campuses and at scholarly conferences – particularly the Association for Asian American Studies – I have had the distinct pleasure to meet some of the smartest, v friendliest, and most supportive mentors: Dean Adachi, Mike Atienza, Jason Chang, Floyd Cheung, Mary Yu Danico, Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, Keith Feldman, Kevin Fellezs, Eric Hung, Allan Isaac, Jim Lee, Genevieve Leung, Dinidu Karunanayake, Sue Kim, Jenny Korn, Anita Mannur, Martin Manalansan, Lata Murti, Nitasha Sharma, Karen Tongson, Bryan Thao Worra, Judy Wu, and Timothy Yu. Thank you all for all of the conversations, shared meals, and inspiration. To some of my earliest friends in academia – Damon Cagnolatti, Yvonne England, Shannon Hervey, Mavis Huang, Marie Iida – thank you for being comrades in our striving toward higher education. I would like to personally acknowledge Michael Bartch, Brandon Benevento, Sarah Berry, Meghan Burns, Emily Carminati, Alexander Dawson, Jared Demick, Kristina Dolce, Abigail Fagan, Gordon Fraser, Alex Gatten, Micah Goodrich, Daniel Graham, Kate Gross, Christina Henderson, Margie Housley, Chad Jewett, Matthew Jones, Alaina Kaus, Patrick Lawrence, Michelle Maloney-Mangold, Arpita Mandal, Steven Mollmann, Sarah Moon, George Moore, Rachel Nolan, Miller Oberman, Katharine Ormsby, Eleanor Reeds, Melissa Rohrer, Patrick Russell, Christiana Salah, Jorge Santos, Maria Seger, Christina Solomon, Hayley Stefan, Emily Tucker, Krysta Wagner, Jarred Wiehe, Nate Windon, Laura Wright, and Anna Ziering as some of the smartest and best graduate students with whom I could hope to share offices and classrooms. While I was teaching in Japan between 2013 and 2014, I had the chance to discuss my dissertation work with a few particularly helpful colleagues and mentors. I want to thank Emiko Mizunuma, Director of the Undergraduate Bridge Program at Temple University’s Japan Campus for her support and encouragement. I also want to thank my colleague at TUJ Tim vi Williams for enlightening conversations and much-needed laughter in the office. I especially want to thankToshiyuki Ohwada at Keio University for showing me how an English major can make a career out of discussing music and text successfully. It was truly an honor to teach at Keio with colleagues like Toshi. During my time at the University of Connecticut, nothing of this dissertation would have been possible without the hard work the administrative staff does on a daily basis. I want to thank Melanie Hepburn, Lori Nelson, Claire Reynolds, Mary Udal, and Inda Watrous for providing excellent service in administrative and communicative needs. I also want to extend my thanks to Scott Campbell, Lisa Blansett, and each of the graduate student office managers in First Year Writing for helping make teaching smooth and manageable. Of course, a loud “thank you” is owed to A. Harris Fairbanks, Victoria Ford Smith, Robert Hasenfratz, Charles Mahoney, and Gregory Semenza for their various directorial roles in our department. Faculty members and administrative staff in other departments than English at the University of Connecticut have also played important roles in this project. I would like to thank Roger Buckley, Jason Chang, Fe Delos-Santos, Alexis Dudden, Margo Machida, and Angela Rola for their teaching, mentoring, organizing, sharing, and listening. The primary reason I came to the University of Connecticut was to work with the amazing professors in the English department. I have been truly fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from and engage with Christopher Vials, Martha Cutter, and Cathy Schlund-Vials. Chris’ course on “class frames” gave me the foundational knowledge necessary to discuss the production of capital, the value of work, and liberal ideology. Martha’s course on “visual rhetoric and social change” truly helped me build my analysis of image and design. The independent study course I took with Cathy on “major texts in American Studies” was vii informative, challenging, and enlightening, particularly in terms of questions of citizenship. Having these three mentors – in every positive aspect of the word – as my dissertation committee has been nothing but a pleasure, and I owe them a world of thanks. Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my family. My aunt and uncle, Jo Anne and Roy Painter, as well as my grandmother, Betty Hellwarth, have always reminded me how proud they are of my accomplishments, encouraging me to go on. My dad, Michael Patrick Higgins, has been unwavering in his support of my higher education and in his displays of love. Without my wife, Mio Higgins, I would not be doing any of this. Without her, I probably would have ended up globetrotting from language school to language school as an EFL instructor. This might not have been a bad life, but I am so grateful that I met her and that I was inspired enough by our love to seek a higher goal. Her never-ending support and endless love breathe life into me. I love her with all of my heart, and I can’t wait for us to get back to having fun when this thing is submitted. Finally, our son, Louis, has been such a wave of happiness in our lives. Sometimes we’re surfing that wave and sometimes we get smashed into the jetty. Nevertheless, there is nothing more inspiring than looking into his beautiful eyes and knowing that I owe it to him to succeed. From the center of my soul, thank you all so, so much. I hope someone reads this. viii Table of Contents Introduction: Sound Studies in Literature ....................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk and America’s Only Music ................. 17 Sounds and the Hierarchy of the Senses ...................................................................................