New Books in Performing Arts
Episodes
Donall Mac Cathmhaoill, "Theatres of Post-Conflict Northern Ireland: Winning the Peace" (University of Exeter Press, 2024)
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Theatre has played an important role in post-conflict northern Ireland, where it has been used by artists, communities, and organisations as a tool...
Paola De Santo and Caterina Mongiat Farina, (eds. and trans.) Isabella Andreini, "Letters" (Iter Press, 2023)
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Isabella Andreini, Letters, ed. and trans. Paola De Santo and Caterina Mongiat Farina. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Iter Press of the Un...
Katie Beswick, "Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture" (Routledge, 2025)
31 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How are working class women represented in contemporary culture? In Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture (Routledge, 2025),...
Adi Nester, "Unsettling Difference: Music Drama, the Bible, and the Critique of German Jewish Identity" (Cornell UP, 2025)
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adi Nester is an Assistant Professor of German and Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first monograph, Unsettlin...
Heist
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Caper movies aren’t like others involving criminals: there’s an aesthetic to a caper that’s as important to the thieves as it is to the viewers....
Claire Knight, "Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953" (Cornell UP, 2024)
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953 (Cornell UP, 2024) explores a neglected period in the history ...
Kevin Smokler, "Break the Frame: Conversations with Women Filmmakers" (Oxford UP, 2025)
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the twenty-first century alone, women filmmakers have succeeded at directing every size, genre, and style of motion picture. Their movies have won ...
M. Myrta Leslie Santana, Transformismo: Performing Trans/Queer Cuba" (U Michigan Press, 2025)
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Transformismo, M. Myrta Leslie Santana draws on years of embedded research within Cuban trans/queer communities to analyze how transformistas, or ...
Matthew Restall, "On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide" (Oxford UP, 2025)
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and ...
Mayukh Sen, "Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star" (Norton, 2025)
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2022, Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. But she wasn’t the first actress of Asian origin to...
Annie Zaleski, "I Got You Babe: A Celebration of Cher" (Running Press Adult, 2025)
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Covering her life and sixty-year career from Sonny & Cher to show-stopping solo performer, award-winning actress, fashion icon, and beyond, this is ...
Robert F. Darden and Stephen M. Newby, "Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch" (Oxford UP, 2025)
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gospel singer and seven-time Grammy winner Andraé Crouch (1942-2015) hardly needs introduction. His compositions--"The Blood Will Never Lose Its Powe...
The Fisher King
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s our 300th episode and we honor a listener request for this milestone. The Fisher King (1991) could not be made today–not because of politic...
Ariel Nereson, "Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
11 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, renowned choreographer and director Bill T. Jones developed three tributes: Serenade/The Proposi...
Samuel Jay Keyser, "Play It Again, Sam: Repetition in the Arts" (MIT Press, 2025)
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Leonard Bernstein, in his famous Norton Lectures, extolled repetition, saying that it gave poetry its musical qualities and that music theorists' ref...
John Lee Hooker Jr., "From the Shadow of the Blues: My Story of Music, Addiction, and Redemption" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025)
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the Shadow of the Blues: My Story of Music, Addiction, and Redemption (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) is powerful memoir of redemption from the so...
Robin Miles: Talking Books
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we bring you a masterclass in audiobook narration and acting with acclaimed actor, casting director, audiobook narrator and audiobook director, ...
Liz Pelly, "Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist" (Atria, 2025)
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Liz Pelly has been closely following the evolution of Spotify and other music streaming services and the effect they have had on the music sector and ...
Katie Milestone and Simon A. Morrison, "Transatlantic Drift: The Ebb and Flow of Dance Music" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
04 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Transatlantic Drift: The Ebb and Flow of Dance Music (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Katie Milestone & Dr. Simon A. Morrison explores the emergence and evolu...
Yuma Hampejs and Marcel Schulze, "Electronic Body Music" (Mionaetti, 2024)
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mixing the spirit and energy of punk with synths. electronic body music (or EBM) took off in the early 80s in Germany, Belgium, and the UK – with ba...
Ben Arogundade, "Hollywood Blackout: The Battle for Recognition in a White Hollywood" (Cassell, 2025)
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On February 29, 1940, African American actor Hattie McDaniel became the first person of color, and the first Black woman, to win an Academy Award. The...
Giorgio Bertellini, "The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and the Political Leadership in 1920s America" (U California Press, 2019)
21 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1927, the Hollywood stars (and spouses), Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr stood outside their California home, arms raised in fascist salute...
Alfred L. Martin, Jr., "Fandom for Us, by Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences" (NYU Press, 2025)
19 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Boldly going where few fandom scholars have gone before, Fandom for Us, by Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences (NYU Press, 2025) brea...
Sarah Saddler, "Performing Corporate Bodies: Multinational Theatre in Global India" (Routledge, 2025)
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do corporations use theater to reconcile the crises of late capitalism? In our latest interview on Ethnographic Marginalia, we speak with Dr. Sara...
David Wiles, "Democracy, Theatre and Performance: From the Greeks to Gandhi" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
12 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Democracy, argues David Wiles, is actually a form of theatre. In making his case, the author deftly investigates orators at the foundational moments o...
Mark Doyle, "John Cale's Paris 1919" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John Cale's enigmatic masterpiece, Paris 1919, appeared at a time when the artist and his world were changing forever. It was 1973, the year of the W...
Anna Maria Busse Berger and Henry Spiller, "Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago" (U California Press, 2025)
07 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Although the history of Indonesian music has received much attention from ethnomusicologists and Western composers alike, almost nothing has been writ...
Miriam Haughton, "The Theatre of Louise Lowe" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Louise Lowe is a theatre and performance director, writer, choreographer, dramaturge, and, more recently, a television director and short film writer/...
Liz William, "Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain" (Reaktion, 2025)
29 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain (Reaktion, 2025) by Liz Williams explores transgression and shame in British folklor...
Koen Galle, "Fuse, Thirty Years of Making Noise" (AfterClub, 2024)
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1994, Fuse opened its doors on the Rue Blaes in downtown Brussels. From early on, this nightclub attracted Detroit techno pioneers Carl Craig, Jeff...
Paul R. Laird and Elizabeth A. Wells, "The Cambridge Companion to West Side Story" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over sixty years after its opening night, West Side Story is perhaps the most famous and beloved of twentieth-century musicals and stands as a colos...
Simon Morrison, "Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer" (Yale UP, 2024)
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we ...
Holly Grout, "Playing Cleopatra: Inventing the Female Celebrity in Third Republic France" (LSU Press, 2024)
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Questions about the meaning of womanhood and femininity loomed large in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French culture. In Playing Cleop...
Fiona Handyside, "Girls' Hairstories: Sparkle and Resilience in Contemporary Screen Cultures" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why have dynamic and shifting hairstyles, from Katniss Everdeen’s Power Plait to JoJo Siwa’s outsize bows, become such a significant part of how g...
Ariane Sherine, "The Real Sinéad O'Connor" (White Owl, 2024)
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sinéad O'Connor, renowned for her angelic voice and activism, overcame a tumultuous upbringing to become a global protest singer and advocate for soc...
Richard Heppner, "Woodstock: From World War to Culture Wars" (SUNY Press, 2024)
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few towns in America are as famous as Woodstock, New York—although Woodstock may be most famous for an event that happened many miles away! Long bef...
Chris Alexander, "Art! Trash! Terror! Adventures in Strange Cinema" (Headpress, 2025)
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ART! TRASH! TERROR! Adventures in Strange Cinema (Headpress 2025) by Chris Alexander is a treasure trove of in-depth essays and edifying interviews ...
Georgia Finnegan, "Grace & Grit: A History of Ballet in Minnesota" (Afton Historical Society, 2024)
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The names are iconic and familiar to anyone in Minnesota with an interest in dance: the Andaházy School of Classical Ballet, Minnesota Dance Theatre,...
Alfie Bown, "Post-Comedy" (Polity, 2025)
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not so long ago, comedy and laughter were a shared experience of relief, as Freud famously argued. At their best, ribbing, roasting, piss-taking and i...
Elizabeth T. Craft, "Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage" (Oxford UP, 2024)
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
George M. Cohan was one of those rare Broadway figures who was a composer, lyricist, playwright, performer, director, theater owner, and star actor. H...
Simona Valeriani, "The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences" (Brepols, 2024)
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences (Brepols, 2024) by Dr. Simona Valeriani takes one of London’s most iconic buildings and decon...
Joseph Jonghyun Jeon, "Bong Joon Ho" (U Illinois Press, 2024)
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Successful cult films like The Host and Snowpiercer proved to be harbingers for Bong Joon Ho's enormous breakthrough success with Parasite. In Bong ...
Kate Fortmueller and Luci Marzola, "Hollywood Unions" (Rutgers UP, 2024)
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hollywood Unions (Rutgers UP, 2024) is a unique collection that tells the stories of the unions and guilds that have organized motion picture and te...
William Burns, "Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia" (Headpress, 2025)
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The future ain't what it used to be. Is nostalgia revitalizing or killing 21st-century culture? The concept of nostalgia has seeped into almost all as...
Joseph Straus, "Cultural Narratives of Old Age in the Lives, Work, and Reception of Old Musicians" (Routledge, 2024)
15 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cultural Narratives of Old Age in the Lives, Work, and Reception of Old Musicians (Routledge, 2024) discusses the creative work of old musicians—co...
Pamela Allen Brown, "The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage: Agency, Theatricality, and the Innamorata" (Oxford UP, 2021)
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pamela Allen Brown joins Jana Byars to talk about The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage (Oxford University Press, 2022), which traces the trans...
Laurel Victoria Gray, "Women’s Dance Traditions of Uzbekistan: Legacy of the Silk Road" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Women’s Dance Traditions of Uzbekistan: Legacy of the Silk Road (Bloomsbury, 2024) is the first comprehensive work in English on the three major re...
Katie Beisel Hollenbach, "The Business of Bobbysoxers: Cultural Production in 1940s Frank Sinatra Fandom" (Oxford UP, 2024)
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Business of Bobbysoxers: Cultural Production in 1940s Frank Sinatra Fandom (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Katie Beisel Hollenbach reconsi...
Réjane Dreifuss et al., "Live Performance and Video Games: Inspirations, Appropriations and Mutual Transfers" (Transcript Publishing, 2024)
08 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Narrative strategies, immersion, interaction, participation, identification, multimodality, characters and the connection between physical and fiction...
Samantha Ege, "South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago's Classical Music Scene" (U Illinois Press, 2024)
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene by Samantha Ege (University of Illinois Press, 2014) is a collec...
Robert Dayton, "Cold Glitter: The Untold Story of Canadian Glam" (Feral House, 2024)
03 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cold Glitter: The Untold Story of Canadian Glam (Feral House, 2025) uncovers a forgotten yet fascinating chapter on glam rock music and culture...fro...
Monica A. Hershberger, "Women in American Operas of The 1950s: Undoing Gendered Archetypes" (U Rochester Press, 2023)
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 1950s looks placid from the outside, but underneath that calm post-war exterior roiled the intellectual and activist beginnings of the political m...
Lily E. Hirsch, "Taking Funny Music Seriously" (Indiana UP, 2024)
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Take funny music seriously! Though often dismissed as silly or derivative, funny music, Lily E. Hirsch argues, is incredibly creative and dynamic, ser...
Arthur Bradley, "Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy" (Columbia UP, 2024)
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy (Columbia University Press, 2024) explores the relationship between theater and sovereignty in mode...
In One Ear, Out The Other
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s show, we address a performer’s nightmare—the nightmare of not being able to hear yourself onstage. My guest is ethnomusicologist Jaco...
Adam Zucker, "Shakespeare Unlearned: Pedantry, Nonsense, and the Philology of Stupidity" (Oxford UP, 2024)
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shakespeare Unlearned: Pedantry, Nonsense, and the Philology of Stupidity (Oxford UP, 2024) dances along the borderline of sense and nonsense in earl...
Randy Fertel, "Winging It: Improv’s Power & Peril in the Time of AI & Trump" (Spring, 2024)
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Winging It: Improv’s Power & Peril in the Time of AI & Trump (Spring, 2024) is Randy Fertel’s third book, his second on improvisation. Creating s...
Joseph McBride, "George Cukor's People: Acting for a Master Director" (Columbia UP, 2024)
21 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The director of classic films such as Sylvia Scarlett, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, A Star Is Born, and My Fair Lady, George Cu...
Toby Manning, "Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music" (Repeater, 2024)
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From rock & roll to contemporary pop, Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music (Repeater, 2024) is a timely and original explorat...
Beth Kaplan, "Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin" (Syracuse UP, 2007)
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Born of an Anglican mother and a Jewish father who disdained religion, Kaplan knew little of her Judaic roots and less about her famed great-grandfath...
Leah Kardos, "Kate Bush's Hounds of Love" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into realms of imagination and possibility. Side A s...
Eric Drott, "Streaming Music, Streaming Capital" (Duke UP, 2024)
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Streaming Music, Streaming Capital (Duke University Press, 2024) provides a much-needed study of the political economy of music streaming, drawing...
Biopic
01 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of High Theory, Laura Stamm talks about the biopic. One of the oldest forms of narrative cinema, biographical pictures are a mainstay ...
Chris Berry et al., "Taiwanese-Language Cinema: Rediscovered and Reconsidered" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Taiwanese-Language Cinema: Rediscovered and Reconsidered (Edinburgh UP, 2024), edited by Chris Berry, Wafa Ghermani, Corrado Neri, and Ming-yeh T. Ra...
David Suisman, "Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America's Soldiers" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
25 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Instrument of War: Music and the Making of the America's Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024), David Suisman shows that t...
Veronica Keller and Sabrina Mittermeier, "From Broadway to the Bronx: New York City’s History through Song" (Intellect, 2024)
25 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From Broadway to the Bronx: New York City’s History through Song (Intellect, 2024) tells the history of New York City in song across a variety of ...
Margaret Mehl, "Music and the Making of Modern Japan: Joining the Global Concert" (Open Book, 2024)
23 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Margaret Mehl’s Music and the Making of Modern Japan: Joining the Global Concert (Open Book 2024) examines the ways in which Western classical (or...
Shalini Kakar, "Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023)
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fa...
Carrie J. Preston, "Complicit Participation: The Liberal Audience for Theater of Racial Justice" (Oxford UP, 2024)
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this incisive critique of the ways performances of allyship can further entrench white privilege, author Carrie J. Preston analyses her own complic...
Benjamin Barson, "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons" (Wesleyan UP, 2024)
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons (Wesleyan UP, 2024) recasts the birth of jazz, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orle...
Connie DeNave, "The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass" (2023)
18 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass Ceiling (2023), Connie DeNave shares her experiences in the public relations world during the...
Nicholas Baer, "Historical Turns: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism" (U California Press, 2024)
16 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Historical Turns: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Nicholas Baer reassesses Weimar cinema in...
Risk
16 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of High Theory, Faye Raquel Gleisser tells us about Risk. A calculable danger in economics, athletics, sociology, or healthcare, risk ...
Elsie Walker, "Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society" (Oxford UP, 2023)
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society (Oxford UP, 2023) highlights the life-sustaining and life-affirming power of cinema. Author Elsie W...
Lisa Nielson, "Music and Musicians in the Medieval Islamicate World: A Social History" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the early medieval Islamicate period (800–1400 CE), discourses concerned with music and musicians were wide-ranging and contentious, and expr...
Daniela Berghahn, "Exotic Cinema: Encounters with Cultural Difference in Contemporary Transnational Film" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
09 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Daniela Berghahn's award-winning monograph Exotic Cinema: Encounters with Cultural Difference in Contemporary Transnational Film (Edinburgh UP, 2023...
John Duffus, "Backstage in Hong Kong: A Life with the Philharmonic, Broadway Musicals and Classical Superstars" (Blacksmith Books, 2024)
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the Hong Kong Philharmonic is one of the world’s great symphony orchestras. But when John Duffus landed in Hong Kong in 1979 as the Philharmo...
Roberto Morales-Harley, "The Embassy, the Ambush, and the Ogre: Greco-Roman Influence in Sanskrit Theater” (Open Book, 2024)
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Embassy, the Ambush, and the Ogre: Greco-Roman Influence in Sanskrit Theater (Open Book, 2024) presents a sophisticated and intricate examinatio...
Kristina Kolbe, "The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music" (Manchester UP, 2024)
02 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when the elitist space of 'Western' classical music seeks to diversify itself? And what are the social effects worked through diversity d...
Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024)
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods...
Bihani Sarkar, "Classical Sanskrit Tragedy: The Concept of Suffering and Pathos in Medieval India" (I. B. Tauris, 2021)
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is often assumed that classical Sanskrit poetry and drama lack a concern with the tragic. However, as Bihani Sarkar makes clear in Classical Sansk...
Landon Palmer, "Rock Star/Movie Star: Power and Performance in Cinematic Rock Stardom" (Oxford UP, 2020)
26 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studi...
Megan Steigerwald Ille, "Opera for Everyone: The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every year a relatively small number of canonic operas are produced around the world. Many companies shy away from new works, afraid of alienating a p...
Kevin Sanson, "Mobile Hollywood: Labor and the Geography of Production" (U California Press, 2024)
20 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is the future of the film industry? In Mobile Hollywood Labor and the Geography of Production (U California Press, 2024), Kevin Sanson, Prof...
Ashawnta Jackson, "Soul-Folk" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Folk music of the 1960s and 1970s was a genre that was always shifting and expanding, yet somehow never found room for so many. In the sounds of soul-...
Peter C. Kunze, "Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it had...
Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024)
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose rea...
Ora Horn Prouser et al., "Under One Tent: Circus, Judaism, and Bible" (Ben Yehuda Press, 2023)
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The study of Jewish text, over two millennia, has traditionally taken place in the Bet Midrash (the communal study hall), sitting at a table or desk. ...
Aviva Dove-Viebahn, "There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises (Rutgers UP, 2023) interrogates the representation ...
John Withington, "A History of Fireworks from: Their Origins to the Present Day" (Reaktion, 2024)
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A History of Fireworks from: Their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion, 2024) by John Withington illuminates the glittering history of fireworks, fr...
Natalie Wall, "Black Expression and White Generosity: A Theoretical Framework of Race" (Emerald Publishing, 2024)
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Expression and White Generosity: A Theoretical Framework of Race (Emerald Publishing, 2024), Dr. Natalie Wall takes readers on a journey th...
Serena Laiena, "The Theatre Couple in Early Modern Italy: Self-Fashioning and Mutual Marketing" (U Delaware Press, 2023)
05 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Serena Laiena joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, The Theater Couple in Early Modern Italy: Self-Fashioning and Mutual Marketing (Universit...
Kristina Kolbe, "The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music" (Manchester UP, 2024)
05 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is the future of classical music? In The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music (Manchester UP, 20...
Lynne B. Sagalyn, "Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change" (MIT Press, 2023)
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is it about Times Square that has inspired such attention for well over a century? And how is it that, despite its many changes of character, the...
Konrad Bercovici, "The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years with the Legends Who Lunch" (SUNY Press, 2024)
28 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Konrad Bercovici's The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years With the Legends Who Lunch (SUNY Press, 2024) is a previously unpublished manuscript explori...
Francesco Lotoro, "The Lost Music of the Holocaust: Bringing the Music of the Camps to the Ears of the World at Last" (Headline, 2024)
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Scores sewn into coat linings, instruments hidden in suitcases, sheet music stashed among dirty laundry, concertos written on discarded food wrappers ...
Jane Little Botkin, "The Pink Dress: A Memoir of a Reluctant Beauty Queen" (She Writes Press, 2024)
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn’t have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in colle...
Emily Carman, "Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System" (U Texas Press, 2016)
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the heyday of Hollywood’s studio system, stars were carefully cultivated and promoted, but at the price of their independence. This familiar ...
Lucy Weir, "Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury" (Routledge, 2024)
21 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can self-harm be art? In Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury (Routledge, 2024), Lucy Weir, a Reader in History of Art at the University of E...
Sheri Chinen Biesen, "Through a Noir Lens: Adapting Film Noir Visual Style" (Columbia UP, 2024)
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shadows. Smoke. Dark alleys. Rain-slicked city streets. These are iconic elements of film noir visual style. Long after its 1940s heyday, noir hallmar...