Challenging the Musical Canon of ‘Christian Others’: The Nigerian Christian Songs Project as Cultural Archive, Pedagogical Tool, and Decolonial Resource

21 March 2023, 4.30 PM - 21 March 2023, 6.00 PM

Monique Ingalls (Baylor University; Next Generation Visiting Fellow)

Victoria's Room, Department of Music, Victoria Rooms, Queens Road BS8 1SA

The authors of Transformative Digital Humanities (2020) argue that the Digital Humanities (DH) not only carries the potential to revolutionize research methods, but also to promote causes of self-representation and social justice through ‘reexamination and reconstitution of existing [cultural] canons.’ This paper describes the DH project Nigerian Christian Songs, whose genesis stems from critical examination of one such musical canon: a body of non-Western Christian hymns labeled ‘global song.’ Many North American Christians sing global song in an attempt to identify with co-religionists across geographical distance and cultural difference. Recent critical scholarship has noted, however, that a small number of self-appointed global song curators and publishers exert a disproportionate influence in determining what is included in this repertoire, often reinforcing essentialist stereotypes.

North American universities and theological institutions are often complicit in perpetuating this musical canon of ‘Christian Others’. But how might these institutions instead encourage greater local control of cultural representation, engaging students, religious leaders, and churchgoers in knowledge creation? This presentation provides an alternative model by chronicling the creation of Nigerian Christian Songs. This interactive, multimedia website has been created through an ongoing partnership among doctoral programs in Nigeria and the USA. Through hybrid ethnography and various DH methods, students have constructed a new, open ‘canon’ that showcases the diversity of songs and styles sung in Nigerian churches. The project demonstrates the transformative potential of digital humanities methods combined with decolonial pedagogy: it allows amplification of the voices of marginalized communities in representing and interpreting their own musical traditions, breaks down harmful stereotypes, and provides a useful pedagogical resource for university courses and church musicians.

Biography:

Dr. Monique M. Ingalls is a researcher, teacher, network builder, and musician. She is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Research and Graduate Programs at the Center for Christian Music Studies at Baylor University (Texas, USA). Published in the fields of ethnomusicology, religious & theological studies, media studies, and hymnology, she is the author of Singing the Congregation (Oxford University Press, 2018) and editor of five additional books on congregational singing. Dr. Ingalls serves as senior series editor of the Congregational Music Studies Book Series from Routledge Press, which publishes academic monographs on congregational music-making from international and interdisciplinary perspectives. Her current projects include a forthcoming co-edited volume on Black British gospel music, a monograph on the history and social significance of British gospel choirs, and a collaborative digital humanities project on Nigerian church music. As a pianist and vocalist, Dr. Ingalls enjoys participating in a variety of musical genres, including pop-rock, folk, classical, and gospel.

Edit this page