About this Network

 

H-Southern-Music is H-Net's network on Southern Music.

I. The H-Southern-Music Network: Scope, Content, Purpose

Welcome to H-Southern Music. For many observers, music represents one of the most identifiable characteristics of the American South. Indeed, there is little doubt that music has provided one of the region’s greatest contributions to national and world culture. The primary purpose of H-Southern Music is to provide a forum for exploring and discussing the historical nature of those contributions. Musical fields under consideration range from Spirituals, Blues, Jazz, Country, Cajun, Tejano, and Gospel to Western Swing, Bluegrass, Zydeco, Rhythm and Blues, Rockabilly, Soul, and every genre and subgenre in between. The various musical styles and categories associated with the region, of course, are all separate and distinctive in their own right. Yet viewing them through a lens which recognizes their interrelatedness provides for a better understanding of the larger regional culture from which they emerged.

The creators of this network have spent much of their academic careers contemplating music’s relationship to the people and cultures that produced it. While none would ever propose that musical expression has been limited to Dixie’s natives, they also understand the distinctive role music has played for those who have resided below the Mason-Dixon Line. They understand that to appreciate fully how the majority of southerners worked, played, and worshipped, loved, laughed and cried, celebrated, mourned, lived, and died, it is necessary to integrate issues relating to music into the discussion. They have and are still endeavoring to demonstrate that any examination of the South and its people that seeks to be complete must acknowledge the active presence of music.

Paradoxically, southern music does not necessarily refer to a specific geographic area. It also alludes to the music’s larger cultural dimensions. Southern migrants, black and white, in migrating to distant locations such as Chicago, California, Detroit, or New York, generally retained (even over generations) aspects of their regional culture. The baggage they brought with them and imparted to others included music. In addition, non-southerners unfamiliar with the region have often understood Dixie through the imagery contained within songs and personified by popular performers. Music has thus played a role in addressing realities and shaping perceptions that is far from trivial. Accordingly, the goal of H-Southern Music is to connect past forms of musical expression to the larger (and often conflicted) social, cultural, artistic, commercial, political, and historical environments from which they sprang.

H-Southern-Music’s edited network is primarily designed for scholars, researchers, and teachers. They are open to all methodological and theoretical approaches, and encourage lively, informed, and professional dialogue. Contributions may include current research and research interests; methods and tools of analysis; reviews of literature, compact discs, films, and exhibits devoted to aspects of the southern musical past; calls for papers; information on conferences, grants, fellowships, and Internet resources relevant to music and music history scholarship. Above all, H-Southern Music is a forum for exploring the approaches, methods, and tools that will ultimately help to incorporate issues relating to music into the traditional narratives recognized as southern and American history.

H-Southern-Music’s new network format also offers opportunities for of digital collaboration utilizing built in platforms and multiple forms of media.

II. Editors.

H-Southern-Music is edited by field experts approved by the network board and certified by H-Net’s Executive Council.  The editors serve two-year renewable terms and rotate their duties. Editors are listed in the Network Staff List linked from the network’s front page. The editors will solicit postings through the Commons, will approve new subscriptions, will handle routine inquiries, and manage submissions. Anyone with suggestions about what H-Southern-Music can and might do is invited to send in ideas by writing to the editorial address. The editors will solicit and post newsletter-type information (calls for conferences, for example, or listings of sessions at conventions.) Like all H-Net networks, H-Southern-Music is moderated to edit out material that, in the editors' opinion, is not germane to the network mission, involves technical matters (such as subscription management requests), is inflammatory, or violates evolving, yet common, standards of Internet etiquette. Please read section III below for details about ownership, style, formatting, and content of your messages. H-Net's procedure for resolving disputes over editorial practices is Article II, Section 2.02 of our council policies, located at:

http://www.h-net.org/about/policies.php

For a list of current editors, visit: https://networks.h-net.org/node/21668/staffpage

III. Communicating Through the Network.

A. Copyright notice. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. H-Net considers all messages posted to its forums to be a form of publication. Unless otherwise arranged with H-Net, all contributions to H-Southern-Music are subject to H-Net’s Terms of Use and its policies concerning copyright and intellectual property, Art. III, Sec. 3.01-3.08 of the H-Net Council Policies. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of H-Net's terms of use. Users of the site verify that they are authorized by copyright holders to submit content to H-Net for publication according to those terms of use, including the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License linked here http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/. Unless otherwise indicated, reviews commissioned by H-Net and published under its imprint are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

A full copy of the H-Net Council Policies and Bylaws and other important information may be found at: http://www.h-net.org/about/.

B. Contributions: The tone and content of H-Southern-Music depends directly on subscribers. The editors want to encourage lively, informal, productive discussion and exchange of information. To that end, we ask that contributions be considerate of the needs of a busy audience of scholars, many of whom must pay for their access to the internet. A number of excellent guides to online behavior and style are available on the internet and we invite you consult them.

-- ALL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NETWORK MUST BE SIGNED. If your profile on the H-Net Commons is not filled out with a valid name and affiliation the editors will delay posting until authorship and email address are confirmed.

-- CONTENT: Editors retain the right to review material for its pertinence, tone, style, and relevance to the network's mission. Ad hominems, unattributed quotations or innuendo, private messages forwarded for posting without permission, or messages that violate the norms of civility and professional courtesy will be rejected. Persistent violators can be removed as subscribers to the network.  H-Net permanently archives its content on the H-Net Commons.  Do not submit material that you consider to be of a private nature or that you would not want available to future readers.

-- STYLE: the default editorial style for discussion postings is that of a letter to the editor. Your remarks can be crafted to suit the tone of an existing discussion thread, but in any case they should address the editor and not make direct personal references to others, except where you are replying directly to a simple query (e.g., "you can find this information in Webster's Third International Dictionary."). Avoid excessive quotation of messages you refer or reply to.

-- FORMAT: While you can submit your posts to the Commons using various fonts, styles and formatting these may be edited by the editor for uniformity and readability.

IV. Technical Information.

When you subscribe to the Commons, H-Net will send you a confirmation message containing important information about managing your subscription. For online help with your subscription see http://networks.h-net.org/help-desk, especially the “Getting Started” section. These guides will help you modify your notifications, unsubscribe from the network, change the e-mail address associated with your profile, and use your “My H-Net” page effectively. If you still have questions after reading the guides please email help@mail.h-net.msu.edu.

V. The H-Southern-Music Network Site

The H-Southern-Music network site contains the following required information and services:

- The archives of the H-Southern-Music network discussions and other uploaded content

- The network's official documents: its about page, lists of board members and editors, contact information, and other founding and information documents.

- Hypertext links to resources in our subject: teaching materials, research archives, other networks.

VI. Advisory Board.

H-Southern-Music's daily activities are managed by the editors. Its long-term policies are developed by the advisory board. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact the current editor. Board members referee incoming articles, reviews, and teaching materials; establish basic subscription restrictions and policy; advise the editors on disputes among editors and subscribers; monitor the network and make active contributions to discussion; and serve as the subscribers' voice in H-Net affairs. You are encouraged to contact any or all of the editorial board members with ideas and concerns about H-Southern-Music.

For a list of the current advisory board, visit: https://networks.h-net.org/node/21668/staffpage

VII. Our Parent Organization: H-Net

H-Net is an international consortium of scholars in the humanities and social sciences that creates and coordinates electronic networks, using a variety of media, and with a common objective of advancing humanities and social science teaching and research. H-Net was created to provide a positive, supportive, egalitarian environment for the friendly exchange of ideas and scholarly resources.

The goals of H-NET networks are to enable scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new approaches, methods and tools of analysis; to share information on electronic databases; and to test new ideas and share comments on the literature in their fields.

H-Net's Council Policies and Bylaws, along with a list of its officers and committees, is available at: http://www.h-net.org/about/

Among H-Net's many services are:

- Book and software reviews: timely, exhaustive, authoritative, professional, fast. Mailed through our lists and stored in searchable, printable, retrievable format on our site at http://www.h-net.org/reviews.

- Job guide postings: at regular intervals, H-Net offers employment information in a broad array of fields in the humanities and social sciences. https://www.h-net.org/jobs/home.php

- H-Net calendar: announcements of conferences, papers, and professional activities, archived and searchable at our web site. You can visit our site and sample these and other services, at: http://www.h-net.org/announce

CONTACTING H-NET FOR MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.h-net.org

E-mail: help@mail.h-net.msu.edu

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H-Net
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East Lansing, MI 48824
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Executive Director: Prof. Peter Knupfer
Michigan State University
E-Mail: peter@mail.h-net.msu.edu