Boxing the Compass

How do we know what we know about chanties? Beginning with the earliest sources, this book traces the history of writing about chanties — exploring the layers of discourse that have developed as authors and collectors have relied on, borrowed from, and contradicted those that came before them — creating an indispensible guide to the primary authors and sources through a century and a half of chanty literature.

Gibb Schreffler, Assistant Professor of Music at Pomona College, has research interests that span diverse musical-cultural areas, including vernacular music and dance of South Asia’s Punjab region, historical work-songs of American maritime culture, and the aesthetics of Jamaican popular music.