This panel discusses a new book titled Silencing the Drum: Religious Racism and Afro-Brazilian Sacred Music (Amherst University Press, 2024). Silencing the Drum explores the role of sacred music in Afro-Brazilian religions and provides detailed accounts of religious racism connected to music, particularly in relation to the drum. The book situates these attacks within a long history of state repression and persecution of Afro-Brazilian religions – particularly between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The authors argue that the process of neighbors initiating “noise” complaints against Afro-Brazilian religious communities; police and other authorities investigating and adjudicating those complaints; and vigilante violence against leaders and devotees all serve as modern mechanisms of silencing what many still view as “primitive” practices.
The panel will be a dialogue between commentators and the authors. It will include samples of music that were recorded for the book and are published in the online version.
| Umi Vaughan | umiv5000@gmail.com | View |