The 1991 Booker Prize--winning novelist Ben Okri, while traveling in the Deep South after Barack Obama＇s victory in the November 2008 presidential election, wrote that Elvis Presley was a lingering deity in the city ...The 1991 Booker Prize--winning novelist Ben Okri, while traveling in the Deep South after Barack Obama＇s victory in the November 2008 presidential election, wrote that Elvis Presley was a lingering deity in the city of Memphis. The images of Elvis Presley, who earned the sobriquet ＂King of Rock＂ early in his career, and that of B. B. King, the exemplar extraordinaire of the Blues, are ubiquitous in the city of Memphis, which may be regarded as a metonym for the Blues and Rock ＇n Roll. The byline for the city of Memphis is, ＂Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock ＇n Roll＂, and this fact announces itself to the visitor as soon as he/she enters the arrivals concourse of the Memphis International Airport. As one proceeds towards the baggage claims area, the images which saturate the walkway create an aura that is redolent of the city＇s vibrant Rock ＇n Roll era. Drawing on Foucault＇s notion of heterotopias, as well as Jakobson＇s work on metonymy, this paper explores the hybrid musical spatiality of the city of Memphis and its environs, as well as its iconic status in the evolution of Rock ＇n Roll which was engendered by the Blues.展开更多
文摘The 1991 Booker Prize--winning novelist Ben Okri, while traveling in the Deep South after Barack Obama＇s victory in the November 2008 presidential election, wrote that Elvis Presley was a lingering deity in the city of Memphis. The images of Elvis Presley, who earned the sobriquet ＂King of Rock＂ early in his career, and that of B. B. King, the exemplar extraordinaire of the Blues, are ubiquitous in the city of Memphis, which may be regarded as a metonym for the Blues and Rock ＇n Roll. The byline for the city of Memphis is, ＂Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock ＇n Roll＂, and this fact announces itself to the visitor as soon as he/she enters the arrivals concourse of the Memphis International Airport. As one proceeds towards the baggage claims area, the images which saturate the walkway create an aura that is redolent of the city＇s vibrant Rock ＇n Roll era. Drawing on Foucault＇s notion of heterotopias, as well as Jakobson＇s work on metonymy, this paper explores the hybrid musical spatiality of the city of Memphis and its environs, as well as its iconic status in the evolution of Rock ＇n Roll which was engendered by the Blues.
