Blues - Philosophy for Everyone

Jesse R. Steinberg is an assistant professor of philosophy and the director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.  He has been a visiting professor at Victoria University in New Zealand, at the University of California at Riverside, and at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has published a number of articles on topics including philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and ethics.Abrol Fairweather is an instructor at San Francisco State University and the University of San Francisco. He has published in the area of Virtue Epistemology and sustains interests in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. He has contributed to popular culture volumes on Facebook and Dexter. The guitar, vocals, and lyrics of Lightnin' Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt are major influences.Series editor:Fritz Allhoff is an associate professor in the philosophy department at Western Michigan University, as well as a senior research fellow at the Australian National University's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, he is also the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007).  His academic research interests engage various facets of applied ethics, ethical theory, and the history and philosophy of science.

“Blues – Philosophy for Everyone provides illuminating essays from this philosophy of the blues.  It brings together intriguing insights into the connection between the blues and philosophy that will appeal to music lovers and philosophers alike.”  (SirReadaLot.org, 1 February 2012)“Blues? Philosophy? Ludwig Wittgenstein as the Hoochie Koochie man?  Why not? There's a crossover: blues and philosophy both exist to make sense of it all, to find meaning in the vicissitudes of living. Leading the fly out of the fly bottle doesn't have to end up as a treatise, it can also end up as a song.  As this book forms one the Philosophy for Everyone series, with titles such as Cannabis -- What Were We Just Talking About? or Dating -- Flirting With Big Ideas, we know that it is not going to be too po-faced in its approach to putting this popular art form under the philosophical lens. And if the other books in this series are as good as this one, then I'll be searching them out, too ... The writing here is of a high order and the essays yield insights galore about the blues in its social, historical and cultural contexts and its personal and universal appeal.”  (Metapsychology Online Reviews, 27 April 2012)

• Foreword xBruce Iglauer It Goes a Little Something Like This…: An Introduction to Blues – Philosophy for Everyone xviJesse R. Steinberg and Abrol FairweatherAcknowledgments xxviiiPART 1 HOW BLUE IS BLUE? THE METAPHYSICS OF THE BLUES 11 Talkin' To Myself Again: A Dialogue on the Evolution of the Blues 3Joel Rudinow2 Reclaiming the Aura: B. B. King in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 16Ken Ueno3 Twelve-Bar Zombies: Wittgensteinian Reflections on the Blues 25Wade Fox and Richard Greene4 The Blues as Cultural Expression 38Philip JenkinsPART 2 THE SKY IS CRYING: EMOTION, UPHEAVAL, AND THE BLUES 495 The Artistic Transformation of Trauma, Loss, and Adversity in the Blues 51Alan M. Steinberg, Robert S. Pynoos, and Robert Abramovitz6 Sadness as Beauty: Why it Feels So Good to Feel So Blue 66David C. Drake7 Anguished Art: Coming Through the Dark to the Light the Hard Way 75Ben Flanagan and Owen Flanagan8 Blues and Catharsis 84Roopen MajithiaPART 3 IF IT WEREN’T FOR BAD LUCK, I WOULDN'T HAVE NO LUCK AT ALL: BLUES AND THE HUMAN CONDITION 959 Why Can't We be Satisfied?: Blues is Knowin’ How to Cope 97Brian Domino10 Doubt and the Human Condition: Nobody Loves Me but my Momma… and She Might be Jivin' Too 111Jesse R. Steinberg11 Blues and Emotional Trauma: Blues as Musical Therapy 121Robert D. Stolorow and Benjamin A. Stolorow12 Suffering, Spirituality, and Sensuality: Religion and the Blues 131Joseph J. Lynch13 Worrying the Line: Blues as Story, Song, and Prayer 142Kimberly R. ConnorPART 4 THE BLUE LIGHT WAS MY BABY AND THE RED LIGHT WAS MY MIND: RELIGION AND GENDER IN THE BLUES 15314 Lady Sings the Blues: A Woman’s Perspective on Authenticity 155Meghan Winsby15 Even White Folks Get the Blues 167Douglas Langston and Nathaniel Langston16 Distributive History: Did Whites Rip-Off the Blues? 176Michael Neumann17 Whose Blues?: Class, Race, and Gender in American Vernacular Music 191Ron BombardiPhilosophical Blues Songs 203Notes on Contributors 205