New Books Network
Music
Children's Literature January 13, 2022

Making Their Voices Heard

The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe

Vivian Kirkfield

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Today I talked to Vivian Kirkfield about her book Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe (Little Bee Books, 2020). Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. On …

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Interviews with musicians and scholars of music about their new books.

Music January 5, 2022

Chapel of Love

The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the Dixie Cups

Rosa Hawkins and Steve Bergsman

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
In 1963, sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Hawkins and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson traveled from the segregated South to New York City under the auspices of their manager, former …
Anthropology January 4, 2022

Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam

Quyền Văn Minh and Jazz in Hà Nội

Stan BH Tan-Tangbau and Quyền Văn Minh

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
Quyền Văn Minh (b. 1954) is not only a jazz saxophonist and lecturer at the prestigious Vietnam National Academy of Music, but he is also one of the most preeminent …
Music December 21, 2021

From This Broken Hill I Sing to You

God, Sex, and Politics in the Work of Leonard Cohen

Marcia Pally

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Leonard Cohen's troubled relationship with God is here mapped onto his troubled relationships with sex and politics. Analysing Covenantal theology and its place in Cohen's work, Marcia Pally's From This …
The Proust Questionnaire Podcast July 9, 2020

Proust Questionnaire 10

Sophia Chang, Writer/Producer

Sophia Chang

Hosted by Uli Baer and Caroline Weber
Sophia Chang has been the manager for several musical acts that have broken boundaries and continue to define our times, including D’Angelo, the RZA of the Wu Tang Clan, and …
Music June 25, 2020

Proust Questionnaire 1

Rosanne Cash, Singer/Songwriter

Rosanne Cash

Hosted by Uli Baer and Caroline Weber
Rosanne Cash is one of America’s great singer songwriters whose art has earned her several Grammys, nominations for Country Music Awards and other honors for titles such as The River …
Popular Culture January 18, 2022

Punk! Las Américas Edition

Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In PUNK! Las Americas Editions (Intellect Books, 2021), editors Olga Rodrguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene have compiled a collection of academic essays and punk paraphernalia (including interviews, zines, poetry, and visual segments) …
Music January 7, 2022

Sounding Together

Collaborative Perspectives on U. S. Music in the 21st Century

Carol J. Oja and Charles Garrett

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
Edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Carol J. Oja, Sounding Together: Collaborative Perspectives on U.S. Music in the Twenty-21st Century (University of Michigan Press, 2021) is a multi-authored, collaboratively conceived book of essays that …
Music January 6, 2022

Lying in the Middle

Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America

Jake Johnson

Hosted by Kristen Turner
Jake Johnson, author of Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America (University of Illinois Press, 2021) takes as his subject the artifice of musicals—no …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast December 23, 2021

The Physics of Banjos

David Politzer

Hosted by Howard Burton
The Physics of Banjos is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and David Politzer, 2004 Nobel Laureate and the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 22, 2021

The Firebird and the Fox

Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks

Jeffrey Brooks

Hosted by Daniel Peris
Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks (Cambridge UP, 2019) by Jeffrey Brooks, Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, is a summa of his lifetime study of Russian culture.  In doing so …
Music December 20, 2021

Instruments of Empire

Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music During US Colonization of the Philippines

Mary Talusan

Hosted by Kristen Turner
Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music during US Colonization of the Philippines published in 2021 by the University Press of Mississippi by Mary Talusan focuses on …
Jewish Studies December 7, 2021

It Could Lead to Dancing

Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity

Sonia Gollance

Hosted by Amber Nickell
Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo …
Environmental Studies November 30, 2021

Performing Environmentalisms

Expressive Culture and Ecological Change

John Holmes McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirksen, and Sue Tuohy

Hosted by Matthew Brown
The volume, Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change, edited by John Holmes McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirksen, and Sue Tuohy (University of Illinois Press, 2021), illustrates the power of …
Science November 26, 2021

Of Sound Mind

How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World

Nina Kraus

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World (MIT Press …
East Asian Studies November 24, 2021

Sound of the Border

Music and Identity of Korean Minority Nationality in China

Sunhee Koo

Hosted by Ed Pulford
When faced with some of the complex identity questions which often arise in borderlands, Koreans in China – known as Chosonjok in Korean, Chaoxianzu in Chinese – have long seemed …
Music November 24, 2021

Why You Like It

The Science and Culture of Musical Taste

Nolan Gasser

Hosted by David Golland
Why do we love the music we love? In Why You Like IT: The Science & Culture of Musical Taste (Flatiron Books, 2019) musicologist Nolan Gasser, architect of Pandora Radio’s Music …
Science, Technology, and Society November 16, 2021

Alien Listening

Voyager's Golden Record and Music from Earth

Daniel K. L. Chua and Alexander Rehding

Hosted by Sarah Kearns
In 1977 NASA shot a mixtape into outer space, and it remains the only human-made object to have left the solar system. The Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecrafts contained world …
Art November 12, 2021

Communions

Adam Lehrer

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
[This episode contains explicit content.] Artists from Kurt Cobain to Amy Winehouse command fascination not only for their work but also for their drug addictions and the manner of their death. Communions …
Japanese Studies November 11, 2021

Tokyo Boogie-Woogie

Japan's Pop Era and Its Discontents

Hiromu Nagahara

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japan's Pop Era and its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2017) by Hiromu Nagahara is the first English-language history of the origins and impact of the Japanese pop music industry. The …