New Books in Performing Arts
Episodes
Edward Tyerman, "Internationalist Aesthetics: China and Early Soviet Culture" (Columbia UP, 2021)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I am joined for my interview with Edward Tyerman by Ed Pulford, another host on our channel. Together, we discuss Edward’s new book, Internationali...
James Lapine, "Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created 'Sunday in the Park with George'" (FSG, 2021)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
James Lapine's Putting it Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George" (FSG, 2021) is a fascinating behind the ...
William Sites, "Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Poet and jazz band musician Sun Ra, born in 1914, is one of the most wildly prolific and unfailingly eccentric figures in the history of music. Renown...
David Schwartz, "David Cronenberg: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From his early horror movies, including Scanners, Videodrome, Rabid, and The Fly—with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasite...
Rebecca Janzen, "Unholy Trinity: State, Church, and Film in Mexico" (SUNY Press, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I spoke to Dr. Rebecca Janzen, Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature at the University of South Carolina about her book ...
Alexa Alice Joubin, "Shakespeare & East Asia" (Oxford UP, 2021)
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Shakespeare’s plays enjoy a great deal of popularity across the world, yet most of us study Shakespeare's local productions and scholarship. Shakes...
Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota Universi...
Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why a...
Katie Rios, "This Is America: Race, Gender, and Politics in America's Musical Landscape" (Lexington Books, 2021)
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“This is America”: Race Gender and Politics in America’s Musical Landscape by Katie Rios (Lexington Books, 2021) examines an eclectic mix of di...
James S. Williams, "Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema: The Politics of Beauty" (Bloomsbury, 2019)
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the beginnings of African cinema, the realm of beauty on screen has been treated with suspicion by directors and critics alike. In Ethics and A...
Jonathan Fenderson, "Building the Black Arts Movement: Hoyt Fuller and the Cultural Politics of the 1960s" (U Illinois Press, 2019)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Building the Black Arts Movement: Hoyt Fuller and the Cultural Politics of the 1960s (U Illinois Press, 2019) explores the history of the Black Arts ...
Peilin Liang, "Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater" (Routledge, 2021)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Proposing the concept of transformance, a conscious and rigorous process of self-cultivation toward a reconceptualized body, Liang shows how theater p...
Karen Jaime, "The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida" (NYU Press, 2021)
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Losaida (NYU Press, 2021), Karen Jaime argues that the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe has al...
I'm Possible: A Conversation with Tuba Professor Dr. Richard White
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Dr. White’s journey to earn a PhD in tuba The Baltimore School for the Arts Th...
Michael Stewart Foley, "Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash" (Basic Books, 2021)
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Johnny Cash famously declared himself to be “The Man in Black”. He sang that he dressed in a “somber tone” for “the poor and the beaten down...
Isaac Butler, "The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“When I set out to write this book, I decided to approach it like a biography. After all, the Method had parents, obscure beginnings, fumbling towar...
Baker A. Rogers, "King of Hearts: Drag Kings in the American South" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Queer Voices of the South podcast, John Marszalek interviews author Baker A. Rogers about their research on drag kings in the S...
The 15 Best Films about the Holocaust
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this special follow-up episode in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I again speak with Rich Brownstein, author of Holocaust Cinema...
Samuel J. Spinner, "Jewish Primitivism" (Stanford UP, 2021)
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, Jewish writers and artists across Europe began depicting fellow Jews as savages or "primitive" tribesme...
Henry K. Miller, "The First True Hitchcock: The Making of a Filmmaker" (U California Press, 2022)
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This untold origin story of the filmmaker explores its transatlantic history. Alfred Hitchcock called The Lodger "the first true Hitchcock movie," one...
Dana Polan, "Dreams of Flight: 'The Great Escape' in American Film and Culture" (U California Press, 2021)
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Caught on film, the iconic jump of escaped POW Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) over an imposing barbed wire fence on a stolen motorcycle has become an un...
Sarah Jane Cervenak, "Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life" (Duke UP, 2021)
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life (Duke UP, 2021), Dr. Sarah Jane Cervenak engages with Black artists and writers who create alternati...
Amy Holdsworth, "On Living with Television" (Duke UP, 2021)
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How should we understand the role of television in everyday life? In On Living with Television (Duke UP, 2021), Amy Holdsworth, a Senior Lecturer...
Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa and Rodrigo Quijano, "Punk! Las Américas Edition" (Intellect, 2022)
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In PUNK! Las Americas Editions (Intellect Books, 2021), editors Olga Rodrguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene have compiled a collection o...
Alexandra Cosima Budabin and Lisa Ann Richey, "Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
17 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Are celebrities “disruptors” who revitalize the development field, or are they just charismatic ambassadors for big business? In Batman Saves the...
Michael Newall, "A Philosophy of the Art School" (Routledge, 2021)
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If one were to devise a motto for the art school of today, the choice between 'you too are an artist' and 'abandon all hope you who enter here' would ...
Jake Johnson, "Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America" (U Illinois Press, 2021)
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 su...
Vivian Kirkfield, "Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe" (Little Bee Books, 2020)
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Vivian Kirkfield about her book Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe (Little...
Gil Z. Hochberg, "Becoming Palestine: Toward an Archival Imagination of the Future" (Duke UP, 2021)
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Becoming Palestine: Toward an Archival Imagination of the Future (Duke UP, 2021), Gil Z. Hochberg examines how contemporary Palestinian artists, ...
Miranda Campbell, "Reimagining the Creative Industries: Youth Creative Work, Communities of Care" (Routledge, 2021)
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can we make creative industries fair and inclusive? In Reimagining the Creative Industries: Youth Creative Work, Communities of Care (Routledge,...
Carol J. Oja and Charles Garrett, "Sounding Together: Collaborative Perspectives on U. S. Music in the 21st Century" (U Michigan Press, 2021)
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Carol J. Oja, Sounding Together: Collaborative Perspectives on U.S. Music in the Twenty-21st Century (Univer...
Olivier Delers and Martin Sulzer-Reichel, "Wim Wenders: Making Films that Matter" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wim Wenders: Making Films That Matter (Bloomsbury, 2020) is the first book in 15 years to take a comprehensive look at Wim Wenders's extensive filmog...
Anna Watkins Fisher, "The Play in the System: The Art of Parasitical Resistance" (Duke UP, 2020)
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does artistic resistance look like in the twenty-first century, when disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinf...
Stephanie M. Pridgeon, "Revolutionary Visions: Jewish Life and Politics in Latin American Film" (U Toronto Press, 2020)
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stephanie M. Pridgeon's book Revolutionary Visions: Jewish Life and Politics in Latin American Film (U Toronto Press, 2020) examines recent cinemati...
Rosa Hawkins and Steve Bergsman, "Chapel of Love: The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the Dixie Cups" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 auspic...
Stan BH Tan-Tangbau and Quyền Văn Minh, "Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam: Quyền Văn Minh and Jazz in Hà Nội" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
Carol Diehl, "Banksy: Completed" (MIT Press, 2021)
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Banksy is the world's most famous living artist, yet no one knows who he is. For more than twenty years, his wryly political and darkly humorous spray...
David Sulzer, "Music, Math, and Mind: The Physics and Neuroscience of Music" (Columbia UP, 2021)
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why does a clarinet play at lower pitches than a flute? What does it mean for sounds to be in or out of tune? How are emotions carried by music? Do ot...
Proust Questionnaire 36: Haaz Sleiman, Actor
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Haaz Sleiman (هاز سليمان) is a Lebanese actor who has appeared as Tarek in Tom McCarthy’s 2007 award-winning film The Visitor, for which ...
Jennifer Fay, "Inhospitable World: Cinema in the Time of the Anthropocene" (Oxford UP, 2018)
27 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Inhospitable World: Cinema in the Time of the Anthropocene (Oxford UP, 2018) explores the connection between cinema and artificial weather, climates,...
David Politzer, “The Physics of Banjos” (Open Agenda, 2021)
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Carolyn Eastman, "The Strange Genius of Mr. O.: The World of the United States' First Forgotten Celebrity" (UNC Press, 2021)
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Strange Genius of Mr. O.: The World of the United States' First Forgotten Celebrity (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture an...
The Storytelling State: Performing Life Histories in Singapore
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, oral histories of everyday Singaporeans are more widely circulated in the nation’s mediascape than ever before. At first glance, storytelling...
Jeffrey Brooks, "The Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks (Cambridge UP, 2019) by Jeffrey Brooks, Professor of History at Johns Hopkins Uni...
David Clare et al., "The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights (1716-2016)" (Liverpool UP, 2021)
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 2015 #WakingTheFeminists Campaign for gender equality in Irish theatre highlighted the marginalization of women in this industry and led to severa...
Mary Talusan, "Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music During US Colonization of the Philippines" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
20 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music during US Colonization of the Philippines published in 2021 by the...
Matthew H. Brown, "Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address" (Duke UP, 2021)
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address (Duke UP, 2021), Matthew H. Brown analyzes the content of the prolific Nigerian film industry's most...
Marianne Worthington, "The Girl Singer" (Fireside Industries, 2021)
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Girl Singer (Fireside Industries, 2021), her latest collection of poems, Marianne Worthington weaves together nature writing, feminism, and c...
Kate Fortmueller, "Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID" (U Texas Press, 2021)
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By March 2020, the spread of COVID-19 had reached pandemic proportions, forcing widespread shutdowns across industries, including Hollywood. Studios, ...
Alisa Freedman, "Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost" (Association for Asian Studies, 2021)
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alisa Freedman's book Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (Association for Asian Studies, 2021) explore...
Sonia Gollance, "It Could Lead to Dancing: Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity" (Stanford UP, 2021)
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prej...
Caetlin Benson-Allott, "The Stuff of Spectatorship: Material Cultures of Film and Television" (U California Press, 2021)
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Made of light and later sound, the film experience cannot be touched, but that does not mean it is immaterial.” So writes Dr. Caetlin Benson-Allo...
Sabrina D. MisirHiralall, "Devotional Hindu Dance: A Return to the Sacred" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Devotional Hindu Dance: A Return to the Sacred (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) sheds light on the purpose of Hindu dance as devotional. Dr. Sabrina D. Mis...
Noah Isenberg ed., Shelley Frisch, trans., "Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna" (Princeton UP, 2021)
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance repor...
John Holmes McDowell et al., "Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change" (U Illinois Press, 2021)
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The volume, Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change, edited by John Holmes McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirkse...
Gretchen E. Minton, "Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country's Love Affair with the World's Most Famous Writer" (U New Mexico Press, 2020)
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tracing more than two centuries of history, Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country’s Love Affair with the World’s Most Famous Writer (Universi...
Nolan Gasser, "Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste" (Flatiron Books, 2019)
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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, archi...
Sunhee Koo, "Sound of the Border: Music and Identity of Korean Minority Nationality in China" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When faced with some of the complex identity questions which often arise in borderlands, Koreans in China – known as Chosonjok in Korean, Chaoxianzu...
Daniel Alexander Jones, "Love Like Light: Plays and Performance Texts" (53rd State Press, 2021)
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Alexander Jones' Love Like Light: Plays and Performance Texts (53rd State Press, 2021) collects seven plays and performance texts from the pa...
Kate Fortmueller, "Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production" (U Texas Press, 2021)
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Despite their considerable presence in Hollywood, extras and working actors have received scant attention within film and media studies as significant...
Adam Lehrer, "Communions" (Hyperidean Press, 2021)
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
[This episode contains explicit content.] Artists from Kurt Cobain to Amy Winehouse command fascination not only for their work but also for their dru...
Katja Praznik, "Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (U Toronto Press, 2021), Katja Praznik counters the Western understanding of art ...
Hiromu Nagahara, "Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japan's Pop Era and Its Discontents" (Harvard UP, 2017)
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japan's Pop Era and its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2017) by Hiromu Nagahara is the first English-language history o...
Andrea Warner, "Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography" (Graystone Books, 2018)
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Warner's Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography (Graystone Books, 2018) tells the story, often in Buffy's own words, of the life of th...
Genevieve Yue, "Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality" (Fordham UP, 2020)
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The female form has been a fraught site of filmic meaning – of desire and violence, of sex and death – from the very beginnings of cinema. But how...
Hsuan L. Hsu, "The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics" (NYU Press, 2020)
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our sense of smell is a uniquely visceral—and personal—form of experience. As Hsuan L. Hsu points out, smell has long been spurned by Western aest...
Raphael Cormack, "Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring 20s" (Norton, 2021)
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of the world’s most multicultural cities, twentieth-century Cairo was a magnet for the ambitious and talented. During the 1920s and ’30s, a vi...
David Pearson, "Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire: Punk Rock in the 1990s United States" (Oxford UP, 2020)
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the...
Caroline A. Kita, "Jewish Difference and the Arts in Vienna: Composing Compassion in Music and Biblical Theater" (Indiana UP, 2019)
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During the mid-19th century, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner sparked an impulse toward German cultural renewal and social change t...
Stephanie N. Brehm, "America's Most Famous Catholic (According to Himself): Stephen Colbert and American Religion in the 21st Century" (Fordham UP, 2019)
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For nine years, Stephen Colbert’s persona “Colbert”?—a Republican superhero and parody of conservative political pundits--informed audiences o...
Gary Bettinson, "The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai: Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance" (Hong Kong UP, 2014)
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking ...
Kelefa Sanneh, "Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres" (Penguin, 2021)
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kelefa Sanneh was born in England, and lived in Ghana and Scotland before moving with his parents to the United States in the early 1980s. He was a po...
Robert McCrum, "Shakespearean: On Life and Language in Times of Disruption" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When inspiration struck Robert McCrum to write a book about the Bard, it came while watching one of the playwright’s plays in Central Park, New York...
Adesola Akinleye, "(Re:) Claiming Ballet" (Intellect Books, 2021)
21 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
(Re:) Claiming Ballet (Intellect Books, 2021) by Dr. Adesola Akinleye explores the history of movement through ballet, representation, and the futur...
Peter Toohey, "Hold On: The Life, Science, and Art of Waiting" (Oxford UP, 2020)
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do when you're not asleep and when you're not eating? You're most likely waiting--to finish work, to get home, or maybe even to be seen by...
Gregory Vargo, "Chartist Drama" (Manchester UP, 2021)
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Vargo's Chartist Drama (Manchester UP, 2021) opens a window into a fascinating aspect of working-class radical drama. This book includes script...
Joseph L. Clarke, "Echo's Chambers: Architecture and the Idea of Acoustic Space" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A room’s acoustic character seems at once the most technical and the most mystical of concerns. Since the early Enlightenment, European architects h...
Matthew Fuller, "Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth" (Verso, 2021)
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, journalists, legal professionals, activists, and artists challenge the state's monopoly on investigation and the production of narratives of tr...
Alana Jelinek, "Between Discipline and a Hard Place: The Value of Contemporary Art" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some fields have an easier time describing themselves than others. "History is the study of past events." "Biology is the study of living organisms." ...
Luci Marzola, "Engineering Hollywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science of Building the Studio System" (Oxford UP, 2021)
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Luci Marzola's book Engineering Hollywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science of Building Studio System (Oxford University Press, 2021) tells...
Mike Dines et al., "The Punk Reader: Research Transmissions from the Local and the Global" (Intellect, 2019)
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Intellect’s Global Punk Series (2019-present) has produced edited collections of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work into local, national...
Phil Rosenzweig, "Reginald Rose and the Journey of 12 Angry Men" (Fordham UP, 2021)
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Phil Rosenzweig's Reginald Rose and the Journey of 12 Angry Men (Fordham Press, 2021) is the first biography of a great television writer, and the s...
Christina Lane, "Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock" (Chicago Review Press, 2020)
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A platinum beauty with an ugly secret; a tall, dark, and handsome husband with murder in his eyes; starkly lit interiors that may or may not include t...
Anne Bogart, "The Art of Resonance" (Methuen Drama, 2021)
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anne Bogart's The Art of Resonance (Methuen Drama, 2021) locates the essence of theatre in the experience of resonant vibration among performers an...
Panayotis F. League, "Echoes of the Great Catastrophe: Re-Sounding Anatolian Greekness in Diaspora" (U Michigan Press, 2021)
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Echoes of the Great Catastrophe: Re-sounding Anatolian Greekness in Diaspora (University of Michigan Press, 2021) explores the legacy of the Great C...
Mathias Clasen, "A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies" (Oxford UP, 2021)
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Films about chainsaw killers, demonic possession, and ghostly intruders. Screaming audiences with sleepless nights or sweat-drenched nightmares in the...
Stephen Lee Naish, "Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency" (New Star Books, 2021)
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Movies open a window into our collective soul. In Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency (New Star Books, 2021), Stephen Lee Naish guides us ...
Shayna Maskell, "Politics as Sound: The Washington, DC, Hardcore Scene, 1978-1983" (U Illinois Press, 2021)
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Washington, DC is known as the birthplace of hardcore punk. The raw, innovative, new sound coming out of the nation’s capital in the late 1970s is e...
Dan Fox, "Limbo" (Fitzcarraldo, 2019)
27 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a world that demands faith in progress and growth, Limbo (Fitzcarraldo, 2019) is a companion for the stuck, the isolated, delayed, stranded and ...
M. W. Shores, "The Comic Storytelling of Western Japan: Satire and Social Mobility in Kamigata Rakugo" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rakugo, a popular form of comic storytelling, has played a major role in Japanese culture and society. Developed during the Edo (1600–1868) and Meij...
Danish Sheikh, "Love and Reparation: A Theatrical Response to the Section 377 Litigation in India" (Seagull Books, 2021)
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two plays about the legal battle to decriminalize homosexuality in India. On September 6, 2018, a decades-long battle to decriminalize queer intimacy ...
Mathias Clasen, "A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies" (Oxford UP, 2021)
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Horror fans are attracted to movies designed to scare us, but others shudder already at the thought of the sweat-drenched nightmares that terrifying m...
Rachel Rojanski, "Yiddish in Israel: A History" (Indiana UP, 2020)
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yiddish in Israel: A History (Indiana UP, 2020) challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities f...
Kristian Petersen, "Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology" (Ilex Foundation, 2021)
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kristian Petersen’s new edited volume Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (Ilex Foundation and Harvard University Press, 2021), introduces t...
Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha, "Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments" (Oxford UP, 2021)
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha's book Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments (Oxford UP, 2021) examines d...
J. P. M. Drury and S. A. M. Drury, "Rhetoric, Politics, and Hamilton: an American Musical" (Peter Lang, 2021)
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hamilton: An American Musical made its record-breaking Broadway debut in 2015—but the musical has reached far beyond typical Broadway audiences to ...
Bernard F. Dick, "Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood" (U Kentucky Press, 2021)
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From Double Indemnity to The Godfather, the stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio that made them. In...
Franz Nicolay, "Someone Should Pay for Your Pain" (Gibson House Press, 2021)
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Franz Nicolay's Someone Should Pay for Your Pain (Gibson House Press, 2021) is a moving, funny, and sometimes brutal novel about the life of a tour...
Martin Harris, "Leatherface Vs. Tricky Dick: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as Political Satire" (Headpress, 2021)
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Watergate scandal was a horror show. What better way to satirize it than with a horror movie? The Texas Chain Saw Massacre written by Tobe Hoop...
Sara E. Lampert, "Starring Women: Celebrity, Patriarchy, and American Theater, 1790-1851" (U Illinois Press, 2020)
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Women performers played a vital role in the development of American and transatlantic entertainment, celebrity culture, and gender ideology. In Star...