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Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism
Benjamin R. Teitelbaum
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Description for Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism
Paperback. Num Pages: 232 pages. BIC Classification: 1DN; AV; JPFN; JPW. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 235 x 156 x 18. Weight in Grams: 318.
In September of 2010, the Daily Mail Reporter announced Anti-immigration party formed from skinhead movement seizes balance of power in Sweden. A politics of skinhead protest, expressed through White Power Music and an explicitly nationalistic subgenre known as Viking Rock, has relied on its music to voice opposition to immigration and multiculturism. Often labeled neo-Nazis or right-wing extremists, these actors shook political establishments throughout Sweden, Denmark, and Norway during the 1980s and 1990s by rallying around white power music and skinhead subculture. More recently, however, these groups methodically revised their presentation in an ... Read moreeffort to refashion themselves as upstanding, intelligent champions of love and human diversity, and once again using music to do so. In Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism, author Benjamin Teitelbaum explores this transformation of anti-immigrant, anti-liberal activism in the Nordic countries as it manifests in thought and sound. As his fieldwork in Sweden overlapped with Anders Behring Breivik's attacks in 2011, Teitelbaum observed the radical nationalist movement at a particularly sensitive moment. Offering a rare ethnographic glimpse into controversial and secretive political movements, Lions of the North investigates changes in the music nationalists make and patronize, reading their surprising new music styles as attempts to escape stereotypes and fashion a new image for themselves. Teitelbaum's work reveals organized opposition to immigration and multiculturalism in Scandinavia to be a scene in flux, populated by individuals with diverse understandings of themselves, their cause, and the significance of music. Ultimately, he uncovers the ways in which nationalists use music to frame themselves as agents of justice, an image that is helping to propel these actors to unprecedented success in societies often considered the most tolerant in the world. A timely and powerful work of interdisciplinary ethnomusicology, Lions of the North will appeal to a wide audience, from scholars in the humanities to those in political science. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Oxford University Press Inc
Place of Publication
New York, United States
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About Benjamin R. Teitelbaum
Benjamin R. Teitelbaum earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Brown University in 2013. He has served served as instructor and Head of Nordic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and affiliate faculty in Music and International Affairs, since 2012. His research focuses on western ultraconservatism, music in the Nordic countries, and music and politics more generally.
Reviews for Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism
Teitelbaum's analyses of internal discussions about the appropriateness of using foreign music in nationalist activism are consistently fascinating.
Respons
Teitelbaum explores with elegance the differences between nationalist factions today ... A brilliant approach [studying the far right through its music] ... During a time when attempts to explain the growth of the extreme right seem only to point ... Read moreto the failures of the left, it is uplifting to read such a methodical account from the inside of the extreme right.
Martin Aagar, Aftonbladet
Benjamin Teitelbaum's Lions of the North is an unflinching assessment of modern Nordic radical nationalism seen through the lens of its fragmented musical affinities, subsequent to the decline of the white power punk scene that once unified it as a cultural space. In privileging the views of radical nationalists the book provides the reader a unique vantage point... putting the greatest advantages and disadvantages of ethnographic methodology itself in stark relief. Lions of the North should be required reading for any scholar of nationalism and any student of ethnography.
Ethnomusicology Forum
Exploring crucial, yet often overlooked dimensions of neo-nationalism through the lens of music-such as its emotional, embodied, and gendered components-Lions of the North is a significant contribution to scholarship. The exceptionally well-written and nuanced book sheds unique light on musical politics. It is essential reading for all who want to better understand the rise, character, and appeal of radical nationalism in the Nordic countries and beyond.
EuropeNow
Lions of the North is an entirely unparalleled study.
Arbetaren
Lions of the North is a very timely book, which captures the rise of Sweden's radical nationalism as the music of the right is transforming diverse political groups into a widespread anti-immigrant movement. Teitelbaum's penetrating, often disturbing, analysis of European musical politics today is critical reading.
Philip V. Bohlman, Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, The University of Chicago, and author of Jewish Music and Modernity
Teitelbaum's vivid and highly readable documentation of the Scandinavian far right music scene encourages us to take racist subcultures, their international links, and the sheer creative vitality of their racism and xenophobia seriously as a strategy for perpetuating dreams of national-racial rebirth in a democratic age.
Roger Griffin, author of The Nature of Fascism
Lions of the North is a deftly crafted and immensely captivating account of how music plays a key part in the inner workings of Nordic radical nationalist groups. By convincingly arguing for, and consistently applying a collaborative approach to ethnographic fieldwork, Teitelbaum avoids any notions of underlying advocacy, a tendency which characterizes many studies on extremist groups. This fearless and thoughtful approach transcends existing scholarship, opening for innovative perspectives that challenge us to see the motivations of radical groups in a new light...Teitelbaum's exceptional, but well-argued approach to fieldwork is challenging and provocative, and is poised to spark discussions among a wide array of scholars.
Jan Sverre Knudsen, Professor, Oslo and Akershus University College
elaborate and intimate ... Benjamin R. Teitelbaum has initiated a dialogue on what constitutes the new nationalism. If we are willing to engage in this dialogue with him, we need to step out of the view of politics as merely concerning the game of party politics, and widen our horizons to consider the wider societal implications of the new Nordic right nationalism. This move means realizing that populism is not merely about brutish skinheads, and that it operates in subtle ways not alien to - but conversely ingrained in - the political mainstream.
Scandinavian Studies
Teitelbaum is an ethnomusicologist who has adopted a refreshingly non-adversarial, multi-year, 'collaborative' ethnographic approach to interacting with and gathering information on his subjects. In a field in which far too many researchers violate normal scholarly standards by embracing a highly partisan and indeed overtly hostile activist posture towards their subjects of study rather than a relatively detached, disinterested or empathetic posture, this is to be welcomed.
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