New Books in Music

Felicia McCarren‘s latest book, French Moves: The Cultural Politics of le hip hop (Oxford University Press, 2013) explores the fascinating evolution of this urban dance form in the French context. Following the choreography and performances of key figures from the hip hop world in France, McCarren’s is a history that pays close attention to dancers and their moves, and especially to the ways in which contemporary dance is informed by-and responsive to-social and political concerns and change. Tracing the history of le hip hop as a form that arrived in France from the United States in the 1980s, French Moves examines the ways this cultural import came to “speak French”. Dance has occupied a privileged place in French national culture historically.French hip hop benefited from the outset from the support of a Socialist government interested in encouraging this meeting of street and stage in performances that embody youth, cultural diversity, and a mouvement social on a number of levels. Considering politics, poetics, techniques and technologies, the book has exciting and important implications for how we think about bodies and borders. It will be of great interest to anyone thinking through issues of citizenship and difference, from the end of the twentieth century up through the complexities of identity and nation in present-day France. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

How are contemporary pop culture ideas about resilience used by Neoliberal capitalism? Robin James addresses this question using philosophy of music (and by doing philosophy through music) in her new book Resistance and Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism, and Neoliberalism (Zero Books, 2015). The book opens with a discussion of Calvin Harris (& Florence Welch’s) Sweet Nothing as a way into theargument that ‘resilience discourse is what ties contemporary pop music aesthetics to neoliberal capitalism and racism/sexism’. James combines musicological analysis of specific techniques, such as soars, stutters and stops, with an exploration of the aesthetics of pop videos and a critical theoretical framework. In particular the book connects theories of biopower and biopolitics, along a critical take on gender and ethnicity, to the work of Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Rihanna. The text also offers a consideration of alternatives, whether those that have already been incorporatedinto contemporary pop, such the techniques and sounds of Atari Teenage Riot, or new strategies and new forms that might be beyond profit, beyond capital, and represent ‘bad investments’ to suck the life fromMulti-Racial White Supremacist Patriarchy. The book will interest a range of humanities and social science scholars, as well as anyone keen to know more about popular music and critical theory. To learn more about Dr James work read her blog here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Discussions of punk tend to focus on groups, like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, and the punk scenes of New York, London, and Los Angeles. Punk, however, was a broader musical cultural movement and sprung up in multiple locations. The Dead Kennedys hailed from the San Francisco punk scene... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Can sociology explain punk? In a new book, Networks of Sound, Style, and Subversion: The Punk and Post-Punk Worlds of Manchester, London, Liverpool, and Sheffield, 1975-80 (Manchester University Press, 2015), Nick Crossley from the University of Manchester offers an important new perspective on the birth of punk and post-punk in London, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield in the mid to late 1970s. Crossley uses social network analysis (SNA) to show why punk developed in specific places in specific ways. This is in contrast to existing work that seeks to ground punk in the strains of adolescent life in the crisis ridden 1970s, or in the actions of specific individuals. The book seeks to account for punk and post-punk in the four cities as a series of musical worlds, all of which have similarities shown by the SNA. Indeed, by concentrating on the networks that facilitated the rise of punk, the book shows how punk can be explained through networks of connected and sometimes competing sets of enthusiasts, before it became a subject of national moral panic. Combining readable examples of SNA with the story of punk, the book will be of interest to a popular, as well as academic, audience. Prof Crossley will be discussing some of his work that has followed the publication of the book, along with a range of papers on music and networks in Manchester on June 16th-18th 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Beyond what people say, what their voices sound like matters. Voice, as Ana Marcia Ochoa Gautier argues in this marvelous new book Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth Century Colombia(Duke University Press, 2014), was embedded in 19th-century conversations and debates about the boundaries between nature and culture, between the civilized and barbaric, between inclusion or marginalization in a public civic sphere. Set in Colombia but relevant for much of Latin America and the Caribbean, the book draws on brilliant interpretations of the sonorous written archive to take up questions of sound, inscription and the epistemological and ontological status of voice. The book will prompt new formulations in both Sound Studies and Latin American Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

For the past few decades a major focus has been how the Internet, and Internet associated new media, allows for greater social and political participation globally. There is no disputing that the Internet has allowed for more participation, but the medium carries an inherent elitism and the need for expertise, which may limit accessibility. According to some advocates, old media like radio offer an alternative without the limitations of new media systems. In her new book Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism (MIT Press, 2014), Christina Dunbar-Hester, an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, explores the activist organization the Prometheus Project, and its role in advocating for greater community access to low power radio licenses. In an ethnographic examination of the medium of microradio, Dunbar-Hester examines the dichotomy of old versus new media, as well as the use of media for participatory and emancipatory politics on the local community level. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

“The chief aim of [philosopher Francois Laruelle’s] life’s work is to consider philosophy without resorting to philosophy in order to do so.” What is non-philosophy, what would it look like to practice it, and what are the implications of doing so? Alexander R. Galloway introduces and explores these questions in a vibrant and thoughtful new book. Laruelle: Against the Digital (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) uses Francois Laruelle’s non-philosophy as a foundation for considering the philosophical concept of digitality. In a series of ten chapters (plus intro and conclusion) and 14 theses, Galloway offers an exceptionally clear and provocative treatment of digitality as a way of thinking about and with difference. In addition to offering a critical encounter with some of the most fundamental aspects of Laruelle’s work as they open up ways of thinking about identity, distinction, and exchange, the book also contains some wonderful discussions of brightness and obscurity, representation and aesthetics, computation, photography, music, ethics, and capitalism, while putting the work of Laruelle into dialogue with Deleuze, Badiou, Marx, Althusser, and others. It’s an exciting work, and I will be re-reading and thinking with it for some time to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Bruce Springsteen is an American icon, known to his fans as “Bruce” and the “Boss.” Springsteen burst onto the American music scene in 1975 with the release of his classic album, Born To Run. His concerts are legendary, and his music offers keen insight on American society. In Bruce Springsteen: American Poet and Prophet (Scarecrow Press, 2014), Donald Deardorff explores the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen and uses them to explore what they reveal about American culture. The book examines how Springsteen’s career represents and comments on the tremendous changes that have shaped the United States since World War II. Deardorff traces the development in Springsteen’s thought, giving equal weight to both the early and late part of his career. In the podcast, we explore a wide range of topics, including artistic influences on Bruce, Springsteen’s analysis of the crisis in masculinity, Bruce’s response to postmodernism, and even the surprising range of artists Bruce has influenced. Donald Deardorff has taught numerous courses in American literature and literary criticism at Cedarville University Ohio, since 1996. He is the author of The Image of God in the Human Body: Essays on Christianity and Sports and Sports: A Reference Guide and Critical Commentary, 1980-1999. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

For many people, filmgoing is a moment to submerge themselves in a new world of meaning and experience a different reality. While film is prominently defined by its ‘moving images’ these alone are not usually able to fully move a viewer. Audiovisual cinema is much more compelling and music has a unique ability to produce emotive power for the viewer. In Scoring Transcendence: Contemporary Film Music as Religious Experience (Baylor University Press, 2013), Kutter Callaway, Affiliate Professor at Fuller Seminary, addresses how cinematic music uniquely opens up a space that invites the viewer to feel. Through his investigation Callaway moves beyond the tradition of textual and literary approaches to film and offers us methods for hearing images and seeing sounds. In our conversation we discuss audience reception, musical transparency, Finding Nemo, filmic narrative, music’s theological capacity, Pixar, western cultural imagination, Up, musical leitmotifs, and Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

What is Ska music? This is a deceptively complicated question. In this podcast Heather Augustyn, the author of Ska: The Rhythm of Liberation(Scarecrow Press, 2013) discusses ska’s journey from a local music in 1950s and 1960s Jamaica, its journey to Great Britain and its fusion with punk and other 1970s musical forms, and then its arrival and dissemination across the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Even as the music developed in different locations and responded to local conditions, it retained its core sound and its central themes and imagery. Augustyn draws on her decades-long research as she tells the story of ska’s growth and development. Heather Augustyn is a journalist and writing teacher living in Chesterton, Ind. She author of Ska: An Oral History (with a foreword by Cedella Marley) which was nominated for the ARSC Award for Excellence, Don Drummond: The Genius and Tragedy of the World’s Greatest Trombonist (with a foreword by Delfeayo Marsalis). Her website is http://skabook.com and she blogs at Foundation Ska. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music