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Music
Music May 11, 2022

From Servant to Savant

Musical Privilege, Property, and the French Revolution

Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden

Hosted by Kristen Turner
Today’s copyright laws are predicated on the idea that music is intellectual property; a commodity that has value to its creator and to its publisher. But, how did that concept …

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

Anthropology May 9, 2022

The Sound of Salvation

Voice, Gender, and the Sufi Mediascape in China

Guangtian Ha

Hosted by Irene Promodh
The Jahriyya Sufis—a primarily Sinophone order of Naqshbandiyya Sufism in northwestern China—inhabit a unique religious soundscape. The hallmark of their spiritual practice is the “loud” (jahr) remembrance of God in …
Performing Arts May 6, 2022

Choreographing in Color

Filipinos, Hip-Hop, and the Cultural Politics of Euphemism

J. Lorenzo Perillo

Hosted by Isabel Machado
Investigating the development of Filipino popular dance and performance since the late 20th century, Choreographing in Color: Filipinos, Hip-Hop, and the Cultural Politics of Euphemism (Oxford UP, 2020) reveals how …
Critical Theory May 6, 2022

Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski

The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century

Dhanveer Singh Brar

Hosted by Gummo Clare
Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century (Goldsmiths Press, 2021) uses three Black electronic musics – footwork, grime, and the work of the …
High Theory May 6, 2022

Computational Creativity

A Discussion with Tuhin Chakrabarty

Tuhin Chakrabarty

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Saronik talks to Tuhin Chakrabarty about the creative processes of Artificial Intelligence, what we can expect from it, and how to keep the results fair. (Saronik messes up the word …
Music May 4, 2022

Move On Up

Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power

Aaron Cohen

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Curtis Mayfield. The Chi-Lites. Chaka Khan. Chicago’s place in the history of soul music is rock solid. But for Chicagoans, soul music in its heyday from the 1960s to the 1980s …
Popular Culture April 28, 2022

I'm Not Holding Your Coat

My Bruises-And-All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion

Nancy Barile

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Nancy Barile shares her love of hardcore punk in her new memoir, I'm Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises and All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion (Bazillion Points, 2022). From disaffected Catholic schoolgirl …
Media April 27, 2022

Media Disrupted

Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars

Amanda D. Lotz

Hosted by Gummo Clare
Has the internet really been the main culprit behind the upheaval of the contemporary media industries? In Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars (MIT Press, 2021), Professor Amanda Lotz …
On Religion April 22, 2022

On Rock'n'Roll, aka "The Devil's Music"

A Discussion with Randall J. Stephens

Randall J. Stephens

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Randall J. Stephens is an Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo. He previously taught at Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne) and Eastern Nazarene College …
Art April 20, 2022

Media Primitivism

Technological Art in Africa

Delinda Collier

Hosted by Holiday Powers
In Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020) Delinda Collier provides a sweeping new understanding of technological media in African art, rethinking the assumptions that have conceptualized African …
Critical Theory April 19, 2022

Black Culture, Inc.

How Ethnic Community Support Pays for Corporate America

Patricia A. Banks

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
Why do corporations fund cultural organisations and events? In Black Culture, Inc.: How Ethnic Community Support Pays for Corporate America (Stanford UP, 2022), Patricia Banks, Professor of Sociology at Mount …
Popular Culture April 15, 2022

Hell of a Hat

The Rise of '90s Ska and Swing

Kenneth Partridge

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In the late ’90s, third-wave ska broke across the American alternative music scene like a tsunami. In sweaty clubs across the nation, kids danced themselves dehydrated to the peppy rhythms …
On Religion April 7, 2022

On Punk Rock and Religious Identity

A Discussion with Francis Stewart

Francis Stewart

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Dr. Francis Stewart completed her doctoral thesis on punk rock as a surrogate for religion, with a particular emphasis on Straight Edge punk, in 2011 at the University of Stirling …
Music April 6, 2022

The Creative Labor of Music Patronage in Interwar France

Louis K. Epstein

Hosted by Kristen Turner
Patronage has long been an important topic of study in musicology, but is much more likely to be one that specialists in medieval or renaissance music research. In The Creative …
General History April 1, 2022

Women and Musical Salons in the Enlightenment

Rebecca Cypess

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we speak to Rebecca Cypess, Associate Professor at Rutgers University, about her new book: Musical Salons in the Enlightenment (University of Chicago, 2022). Interest in music sociability during the eighteenth …
Music March 30, 2022

The Musical Human

A History of Life on Earth

Michael Spitzer

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Today music fills our lives. How we have created, performed and listened to this music throughout history has defined what our species is and how we understand who we are …
General History March 29, 2022

The Art of Appreciation

Music and Middlebrow Culture in Modern Britain

Kate Guthrie

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
From the BBC Proms to Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, initiatives to promote classical music have been a pervasive feature of twentieth-century musical life. The goal of these initiatives was rarely …
American West March 23, 2022

Emerald Street

A History of Hip Hop in Seattle

Daudi Abe

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
West Coast hip hop means much more than LA, argues Dr. Daudi Abe, a professor of humanities at Seattle Central College. In Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle (University of Washington Press …
Irish Studies March 18, 2022

Collecting Music in the Aran Islands

A Century of History and Practice

Deirdre Ní Chonghaile

Hosted by Aidan Beatty
Deirdre Ní Chonghaile is a writer, musician, broadcaster, and curator from the Aran Islands. Working bilingually in Irish and English, she is drawn to voices, contemporary and historical, especially those …
Music March 17, 2022

Weird Al

Seriously

Lily E. Hirsch

Hosted by Franz Nicolay
Funny music is often dismissed as light and irrelevant, but Weird Al Yankovic’s fourteen successful studio albums prove there is more going on than comedic music's reputation suggests. In this book …