New Books in Performing Arts

Nov 02 2024 984 ep. 56 mins 309
New Books in Performing Arts Podcast artwork

Interviews with scholars of the performing arts about their new books

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Kristina Kolbe, "The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music" (Manchester UP, 2024)

Nov 02 2024 52 mins  
What happens when the elitist space of 'Western' classical music seeks to diversify itself? And what are the social effects worked through diversity discourses in classical music institutions? The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Kristina Kolbe addresses these concerns by critically examining how divers

Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024)

Nov 01 2024 59 mins  
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, and Company. With acclaimed revivals of his landmark shows regularly performed in London and New York, and new generations being introduced to the man who forever transformed musical theatre, Sondheim’s legacy has only grown. What

Bihani Sarkar, "Classical Sanskrit Tragedy: The Concept of Suffering and Pathos in Medieval India" (I. B. Tauris, 2021)

Oct 30 2024 84 mins  
It is often assumed that classical Sanskrit poetry and drama lack a concern with the tragic. However, as Bihani Sarkar makes clear in Classical Sanskrit Tragedy: The Concept of Suffering and Pathos in Medieval India (I. B. Tauris, 2021), this is far from the case. In the first study of tragedy in classical Sanskrit literature, Sarkar draws on a wide range of Sanskrit dramas, poems

Landon Palmer, "Rock Star/Movie Star: Power and Performance in Cinematic Rock Stardom" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Oct 26 2024 64 mins  
During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that showcased performances by rock 'n' roll stars. Rock stars eventually found cinema to be a useful space to extend their creative practices, and the motion picture and recording industries incr

Megan Steigerwald Ille, "Opera for Everyone: The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

Oct 25 2024 51 mins  
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 predominantly white, older, wealthy audience who are comfortable with operatic traditions. But opera can also be a site of incredible innovation. Opera for Everyone: The Industry’s Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age

Kevin Sanson, "Mobile Hollywood: Labor and the Geography of Production" (U California Press, 2024)

Oct 20 2024 39 mins  
What is the future of the film industry? In Mobile Hollywood Labor and the Geography of Production (U California Press, 2024), Kevin Sanson, Professor of Media Studies and Head of the School of Communication at Queensland University of Technology, examines the way Hollywood film production has become a global industry. The book theorises Hollywood as a distinct spatial assemblage,

Peter C. Kunze, "Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

Oct 19 2024 68 mins  
In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it had become one of the most powerful entertainment conglomerates in the world. Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance (Rutgers University Press, 2023) by Dr. Peter Kunze argues that far from an executive feat,

Ashawnta Jackson, "Soul-Folk" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Oct 19 2024 70 mins  
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-folk, Black artists like Terry Callier and Linda Lewis began to reclaim their space in the genre, and use it to bring their own traditions to light- the jazz, the blues, the field hollers, the spirituals- and creating something wholly

Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024)

Oct 18 2024 61 mins  
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 real name was Khosrow Vaziri), to write his biography. Things quickly went south, culminating in the Sheik threatening Balukjian’s life. Now seventeen years later, Balukjian returns to the road in search of not only a reunion with the

Ora Horn Prouser et al., "Under One Tent: Circus, Judaism, and Bible" (Ben Yehuda Press, 2023)

Oct 14 2024 63 mins  
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. Studying the Bible has been a project of thinking, talking, contemplative reflection, and debate. There are other ways. Dr. Ora Horn Prouser, Cantor Michael Kasper, and circus artist and choreographer Ayal Prouser have joined to edit