Author: SONG.Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Empire of Song
Author: Dafni TragakiPublisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810888173
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is more than a musical event that ostensibly “unites European people” through music. It is a spectacle: a performative event that allegorically represents the idea of “Europe.” Since its beginning in the Cold War era, the contest has functioned as a symbolic realm for the performance of European selves and the negotiation of European identities. Through the ESC, Europe is experienced, felt, and imagined in singing and dancing as the interplay of tropes of being local and/or European is enacted. In Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest, contributors interpret the ESC as a musical “mediascape” and mega-event that has variously performed and performs the changing visions of the European project. Through the study of the cultural politics of the ESC, contributors discuss the ways in which music operates as a dynamic nexus for making national identities and European sensibilities, generating processes of “assimilation” or “integration,” and defining the celebrated notion of the “European citizen” in a global context. Scholars in the volume also explore the ways otherness and difference are produced, spectacularized, challenged, or even neglected in the televised musical realities of the ESC. For the contributing authors, song serves as a site for constituting Europe and the nation, on- and offstage. History and politics, as well as the constant production of European subjectivities, are sounded in song. The Eurovision song is a shifting realm where old and new states imagine their pasts, question their presents, and envision ideal futures in the New Europe. Essays in Empire of Song adopt theoretical and epistemological orientations in their exploration of “popular music” within ethnomusicology and critical musicology, questioning the idea of “Europe” and the “nation” through and in music, at a time when the European self appears more fragmented, if not entirely shattered. Bringing together ethnomusicology, music studies, history, social anthropology, feminist theory, linguistics, media ethnography, postcolonial theory, comparative literature, and philosophy, Empire of Song will interest students and scholars in a vast array of disciplines.
A Song of Empire
Author: SONG.Empire of Dirt
Author: Wendy FonarowPublisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819574430
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Inside the culture of an artistically influential music community Britain is widely considered the cradle of independent music culture. Bands like Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian, which epitomize indie music's sounds and attitudes, have spawned worldwide fanbases. This in-depth study of the British independent music scene explores how the behavior of fans, artists, and music industry professionals produce a community with a specific aesthetic based on moral values. Author Wendy Fonarow, a scholar with years of experience in the various sectors of the indie music scene, examines the indie music "gig" as a ritual in which all participants are actively involved. This ritual allows participants to play with cultural norms regarding appropriate behavior, especially in the domains of sex and creativity. Her investigation uncovers the motivations of audience members when they first enter the community and how their positions change over time so that the gig functions for most members as a rite of passage. Empire of Dirt sheds new light on music, gender roles, emotion, subjectivity, embodiment, and authenticity.
Empire
Author: Xochiquetzal CandelariaPublisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816528829
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 82
Book Description
Using both lyrical and narrative forms, these concise verses explore a family history set against the larger backdrop of Mexican history, immigration, and landscapes of the Southwest. The poet’s delicate touch lends these poems an organic quality that allows her to address both the personal and the political with equal grace. Straightforward without being simplistic or reductive, these poems manage to be intimate without seeming self-important. This distinctive collection ranges from the frighteningly whimsical image of Cortés dancing gleefully around a cannon to the haunting and poignant discovery of a dead refugee boy seemingly buried within the poet herself. The blending of styles works to blur the lines between subjects, creating a textured narrative full of both imagination and nuance. Ultimately, Empire situates individual experience in the wider social context, highlighting the power of poetry as song, performance, testimony, and witness. Addressing themes such as war, family, poverty, gender, race, and migration, Candelaria gives us a dialogue between historical and personal narratives, as well as discreet “conversations” between content and form.
Information, Territory, and Networks
Author: Hilde De WeerdtPublisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684175631
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
"The occupation of the northern half of the Chinese territories in the 1120s brought about a transformation in political communication in the south that had lasting implications for imperial Chinese history. By the late eleventh century, the Song court no longer dominated the production of information about itself and its territories. Song literati gradually consolidated their position as producers, users, and discussants of court gazettes, official records, archival compilations, dynastic histories, military geographies, and maps. This development altered the relationship between court and literati in political communication for the remainder of the imperial period. Based on a close reading of reader responses to official records and derivatives and on a mapping of literati networks, the author further proposes that the twelfth-century geopolitical crisis resulted in a lasting literati preference for imperial restoration and unified rule.Hilde De Weerdt makes an important intervention in cultural and intellectual history by examining censorship and publicity together. In addition, she reorients the debate about the social transformation and local turn of imperial Chinese elites by treating the formation of localist strategies and empire-focused political identities as parallel rather than opposite trends."
Parental Discretion Is Advised
Author: Gerrick D. KennedyPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501134930
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Experience the stunning rise, fall, and legacy of N.W.A. and how they put their stamp on pop culture, black culture, and hip-hop music forever in this “incredibly vivid look at one of music’s most iconic groups” (Associated Press). In 1986, a group was formed that would establish the foundation of gangsta rap and push the genre forward, electrifying fans with their visceral and profane lyrics that glorified the dark ways of street life and brazenly challenged the police system. Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella caused a seismic shift in hip-hop when they decided to form N.W.A in 1986. With their hard-core image, bombastic sound, and lyrics that were equal parts poetic, lascivious, conscious, and downright in-your-face, N.W.A spoke the truth about life on the streets of Compton, California—then a hotbed of poverty, drugs, gangs, and unemployment. Going beyond the story portrayed in the 2015 blockbuster movie Straight Outta Compton, through firsthand interviews, extensive research, and top-notch storytelling, Los Angeles Times music reporter Gerrick Kennedy transports you back in time and offers a front-row seat to N.W.A’s early days and the drama and controversy that followed the incendiary group as they rose to become multiplatinum artists. Kennedy leaves nothing off the table in his pursuit of the full story behind the group’s most pivotal moments, such as Ice Cube’s decision to go solo after their debut studio album became a smash hit; their battle with the FBI over inflammatory lyrics; incidents of physical assault; Dr. Dre’s departure from the group to form Death Row Records with Suge Knight; their impact on the 1992 L.A. riots; Eazy-E’s battle with AIDS; and much more. A bold, riveting, “non-stop, can’t-put-it-down ride” (Library Journal), Parental Discretion Is Advised unveils the true and astonishing history of one of the most transcendent and controversial musical groups of the 1980s and 1990s.
The Empire of Ashes
Author: Anthony RyanPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101987944
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 646
Book Description
In the White Drake's war, the price of freedom is paid in blood and fire.... For hundreds of years, the Ironship Trading Syndicate was fueled by drake blood—and protected by the Blood-blessed, those few who could drink it and wield fearsome powers. But now the very thing that sustained the corporate world threatens to destroy it. A drake of unimaginable power has risen, and it commands an army of both beasts and men. Rogue Blood-blessed Claydon Torcreek, Syndicate agent Lizanne Lethridge and Ironship captain Corrick Hilemore have been spread to disparate corners of the world, but they are united in their desire to defeat the White Drake and the Spoiled who follow it. Humanity itself is at stake, but with the aid of ancient knowledge, revolutionary technology and unexpected allies, all hope is not lost. Saving the world will require sacrifice, as Clay, Lizanne and Hilemore will see all they know either consumed by flames or reborn from the ashes.
Visions of empire
Author: Brad BeavenPublisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 152611755X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
The emergence of a vibrant imperial culture in British society from the 1890s both fascinated and appalled contemporaries. It has also consistently provoked controversy among historians. This book offers a ground-breaking perspective on how imperial culture was disseminated. It identifies the important synergies that grew between a new civic culture and the wider imperial project. Beaven shows that the ebb and flow of imperial enthusiasm was shaped through a fusion of local patriotism and a broader imperial identity. Imperial culture was neither generic nor unimportant but was instead multi-layered and recast to capture the concerns of a locality. The book draws on a rich seam of primary sources from three representative English cities. These case studies are considered against an extensive analysis of seminal and current historiography. This renders the book invaluable to those interested in the fields of imperialism, social and cultural history, popular culture, historical geography and urban history.
Author: John Sandes
Author: Edith Nesbit