Glenn Stallsmith | Duke University (original) (raw)
Papers by Glenn Stallsmith
philippineislands.ph
The Kalanguya are an indigenous people group of the northern Philippines with a population of app... more The Kalanguya are an indigenous people group of the northern Philippines with a population of approximately 70,000. One of the authors (Arsenio) is a member of this ethnolinguistic group who manages a touring ensemble that incorporates traditional music and dance in performances for Kalanguya communities. Like recent efforts by UNESCO and other transnational cultural organizations, we advocate for strengthening local practices over preserving captured images and sound recordings. While there are important roles for archives and libraries, traditional performing arts are by definition dynamic, culture-making activities that problematize objectification and static forms of documentation. This paper explores the role of these Kalanguya ensemble members as agents of preservation of cultural knowledge that is no longer practiced in its traditional contexts. By analyzing the structure of the group's performance, we investigate how the performers negotiate: 1) their own contingent, constructed, and shifting identities that often fall "in-between" standard classifications of the major ethnolinguistic groups of the northern Philippines; 2) ideas of authenticity regarding the representation of these traditions via new performance contexts; and 3) changes in the meanings of the generations-old rituals for the current generation.
Glenn Stallsmith responds to Scott Aniol's report on the ethnodoxology movement, which was or... more Glenn Stallsmith responds to Scott Aniol's report on the ethnodoxology movement, which was originally published in Artistic Theologian (Vol. 3, 2015). Stallsmith fills in some of the history of ethnodoxology, connecting the development of ethnodoxology to the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Contemporary Christian Music movement. He then suggests different interpretations of the biblical passages Aniol cited in his original article. Taken together, these two articles by Aniol and Stallsmith provide an excellent overview of the development of ethnodoxology, as well as challenges for the future.
Religions
Historically, the language of Protestant congregational song in the Philippines was English, whic... more Historically, the language of Protestant congregational song in the Philippines was English, which was tied to that nation’s twentieth-century colonial history with the United States. The development of Filipino songs since the 1970s is linked to this legacy, but church musicians have found ways to localize their congregational singing through processes of translation and hybridization. Because translation of hymn texts from English has proven difficult for linguistic reasons, Papuri, a music group that produces original Tagalog-language worship music, bypasses these difficulties while relying heavily on American pop music styles. Word for the World is a Pentecostal congregation that embraces English-language songs as a part of their theology of presence, obviating the need for translation by singing in the original language. Day by Day Ministries, the third case study, is a congregation that translates beyond language texts, preparing indigenous Filipino cultural expressions for ur...
philippineislands.ph
The Kalanguya are an indigenous people group of the northern Philippines with a population of app... more The Kalanguya are an indigenous people group of the northern Philippines with a population of approximately 70,000. One of the authors (Arsenio) is a member of this ethnolinguistic group who manages a touring ensemble that incorporates traditional music and dance in performances for Kalanguya communities. Like recent efforts by UNESCO and other transnational cultural organizations, we advocate for strengthening local practices over preserving captured images and sound recordings. While there are important roles for archives and libraries, traditional performing arts are by definition dynamic, culture-making activities that problematize objectification and static forms of documentation. This paper explores the role of these Kalanguya ensemble members as agents of preservation of cultural knowledge that is no longer practiced in its traditional contexts. By analyzing the structure of the group's performance, we investigate how the performers negotiate: 1) their own contingent, constructed, and shifting identities that often fall "in-between" standard classifications of the major ethnolinguistic groups of the northern Philippines; 2) ideas of authenticity regarding the representation of these traditions via new performance contexts; and 3) changes in the meanings of the generations-old rituals for the current generation.
Glenn Stallsmith responds to Scott Aniol's report on the ethnodoxology movement, which was or... more Glenn Stallsmith responds to Scott Aniol's report on the ethnodoxology movement, which was originally published in Artistic Theologian (Vol. 3, 2015). Stallsmith fills in some of the history of ethnodoxology, connecting the development of ethnodoxology to the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Contemporary Christian Music movement. He then suggests different interpretations of the biblical passages Aniol cited in his original article. Taken together, these two articles by Aniol and Stallsmith provide an excellent overview of the development of ethnodoxology, as well as challenges for the future.
Religions
Historically, the language of Protestant congregational song in the Philippines was English, whic... more Historically, the language of Protestant congregational song in the Philippines was English, which was tied to that nation’s twentieth-century colonial history with the United States. The development of Filipino songs since the 1970s is linked to this legacy, but church musicians have found ways to localize their congregational singing through processes of translation and hybridization. Because translation of hymn texts from English has proven difficult for linguistic reasons, Papuri, a music group that produces original Tagalog-language worship music, bypasses these difficulties while relying heavily on American pop music styles. Word for the World is a Pentecostal congregation that embraces English-language songs as a part of their theology of presence, obviating the need for translation by singing in the original language. Day by Day Ministries, the third case study, is a congregation that translates beyond language texts, preparing indigenous Filipino cultural expressions for ur...