resources

This page is under perpetual construction and periodically added to. If you have suggestions, please drop me a line.

  • General Theory and Practice

    Web

    Text

    • Aulgaitis, Dana, et al., eds. (2016) MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture. Black Dog Press, 2016.
      Exhibition catalogue for the Vancouver Art Museum’s 2016 show, covering much of the same ground as this course (at least the more highbrow stuff).
    • Boon, Marcus. (2013) In praise of copying. Harvard University Press.
    • Lessig, Lawrence (2008). Remix. Penguin Press.
    • Navas, Eduardo. (2012) Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling. Ambra Verlag.
    • Navas, Eduardo, et al. (2016) The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies. Rev. ed. Routledge.
    • Vaidhyanathan,  Siva. (2001) Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. NYU Press.
      Groundbreaking study of appropriation practices and intellectual property issues that heavily influenced Rip! A Remix Manifesto and “The Ecstasy of Influence.”

    Video

    • Everything Is a Remix (2010), dir. Kirby Ferguson Four-part web-based documentary by Kirby Ferguson
    • Good Copy Bad Copy (2008) dir. Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke.
    • Rip! A Remix Manifesto (2008), dir. Brett Gaylor.

    Remix before Remix

    • Genette, Gerard (1982). Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, tr. Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1997
    • Rosen, C. (1980). Influence: Plagiarism and Inspiration. 19th-Century Music, 4(2), 87-100. doi:10.2307/746707

    20th century avant-garde art

    Cultural Appropriation and African American Music

    Text

    • Lott, Eric. (2011) Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and The American Working Class, Oxford University Press.
    • Peretti, B. W. (2008). Lift Every Voice. The History of African American Music. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield.

    Video

    • Jazz (2001), dir. Ken Burns.
      A 10-part PBS documentary that is also a history of African Americans in America. The first episode is particularly rich for an understanding of how white people appropriated African American culture and identitly in the 19th century.

    Dub

    Text

    • Hebdige, Dick (1987), Cut N’ Mix: Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music, Routledge.
    • Sullivan, Paul. (2014) Remixology: Tracing the Dub Diaspora, Reaktion.

    Video

    Hip Hop

    Web

    Text

    • See Hip Hop Archive for an exhaustive bibliography of pertinent documents.
    • Chang, Jeff. (2005) Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. Picador.
    • Fricke, Jim and Charlie Ahearn. (2002) Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project’s Oral History of  Hip-Hop’s First Decade. Da Capo Press. 2nd ed.
    • Katz, Mark. (2012) Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ. Oxford University Press.
    • McLeod, Kembrew. (2004) “How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop: An interview with Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Hank Shocklee,”  Stay Free! Magazine, May 31, 2004.
    • Piskor, Ed. (2013 – ) Hip Hop Family Tree. Fantagraphics.
      Multivolume graphic novel retelling of the stories.
    • Toop, David. (1984). The rap attack: African jive to New York hip hop. London: Pluto Press.
      Groundbreaking very early study with a complex understanding of the evolution of the music and an impressive knowledge of African American roots music.

    Video

    • Wild Style (1983), dir. Charles Ahearn.
      Fascinating, loosely fictionalized semi-documentary about the New York hip hop scene in very early days, with precious early footage of the scene.
    • Beat This: A Hip-Hop History (1984), dir. Dick Fontaine.
      A very early BBC documentary with rare footage of original artists.
    • Krush Groove (1985), dir. Ralph Farquhar.
      Fictionalized story but featuring semi-documentary footage of early rappers such as Run DMC.
    • Scratch (2001), dir. Doug Pray.
      Excellent documentary about hip hop djing.
    • And You Don’t Stop: 30 Years of Hip-Hop (2004), dir. Richard Lowe and Dana Heinz Perry.
    • Founding fathers : the untold story of Hip Hop (2009), dir. Ron Lawrence and Hassan Pore.
    • Hip Hop Evolution (2016), dir. Darby Wheeler, Sam Dunn, and Scot McFadyen. [Netflix]

    Mixology

    • Brewster, B., & Broughton, F. (2014). Last night a DJ saved my life: the history of the disc jockey. New York: Grove Press.

    Meme Culture

    Web

    Text

    • Limor Shifman (2013). Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

    Culture Jamming

    Text

    • Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink, eds. (2017) Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance. NYU Press.

    Video

    Intellectual Property

    Web

    Text

    • Hick, Darren Hudson. (2017) Artistic License: The Philosophical Problems of Copyright and Appropriation. University of Chicago Press.
    • McLeod, Kembrew and Peter DiCola. (2011) Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling. Duke University Press.
    • Lessig, Lawrence (2008). Remix. Penguin Press.

    Video

    • Rip! A Remix Manifesto (2008), dir. Brett Gaylor.
    • Good Copy Bad Copy (2008) dir. Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke.
    • Copyright Criminals (2009), dir. Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod.

    Films that use appropriation techniques

    Practical Skills