Contemporary Carioca

The ethnomusicologist Frederick Moehn introduces a generation of Rio-based musicians who build on the música popular brasileira (MPB) of previous decades, but who have yet to receive scholarly attention. This generation, the "children of the dictatorship," reinvigorated Brazilian genres such as samba and maracatu through juxtaposition with international influences, including rock, techno, and funk. Moehn offers vivid depictions of Rio musicians as they creatively combine and reconcile local realities with global trends and exigencies.

The global spread of uniform modes of production and cultural values has been accompanied by a dissemination of stereotypes of "modern" architecture styles almost everywhere around the globe. Paradoxically, the reverse process has also emerged: In some countries, the elites feel the necessity to counterbalance the "loss of identity" and defend their own cultures against the "intruding" forces of globalization. What started as a defensive notion has developed into a more progressive attempt to re-create what has allegedly been lost. This trend is being strongly expressed in discourses about architecture in countries of the South. Who are the actors feeling compelled to "construct" new identities? How are these new identities in architecture created in various parts of the world? And, which are the ingredients borrowed from various historical and ethnic traditions and other sources? These and other questions are discussed in five case studies from different parts of the world, written by renowned scholars from Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, India and Singapore.

Introduction : measuring the economy of the arts -- Museums in flux -- The exhibitionary complex -- Art and the global marketplace -- Conclusion : non-profits and artist collectives as market alternatives

This book, originally published in 1987, is a socio-cultural analysis of a tropical belle epoque: Rio de Janeiro between 1898 and 1914. It relates how the city's elite evolved from the semi-rural, slave-owning patriarchy of the coffee-port seat of a monarchy into an urbane, professional, rentier upper crust dominating the centre of a 'modernising' oligarchical republic. It explores such varied topics as architecture, literature, prostitution, urban reform, the family, secondary schools, and the salon. It evokes a milieu increasingly marked by Europe, demonstrating how French and English culture permeated the lives of elite members who adapted it to their needs and perspectives as a dominant stratum of relatively recent and varied origin. This exploration of cultural 'dependency' in a unique, cosmopolitan, fin-de-siecle urban culture will also interest those concerned with the broader questions of culture and colonialism during the high tide of European imperialism.

During the Cold War, state-sponsored musical performances were central to the diplomatic agendas of the United States and the Soviet Union. But states on the periphery of the conflict also used state-funded performances to articulate their positions in the polarized global network. In Albania in particular, the postwar government invested heavily in public performances at home, effectively creating a new genre of popular music: the wildly popular light music. In Audible States: Socialist Politics and Popular Music in Albania, author Nicholas Tochka traces an aural history of Albania's government through a close examination of the development and reception of light music at Radio-Television Albania's Festival of Song. Drawing on a wide range of archival resources and over forty interviews with composers, lyricists, singers, and bureaucrats, Tochka describes how popular music became integral to governmental projects to improve society--and a major concern for both state-socialist and postsocialist regimes between 1945 and the present. Tochka's narrative begins in the immediate postwar period, arguing that state officials saw light music as a means to cultivate a modern population under socialism. As the Cold War ended, postsocialist officials turned again to light music, now hoping that these musicians could help shape Albania into a capitalist, "European" state. Interweaving archival research with ethnographic interviews, Audible States demonstrates that modern political orders do not simply render social life visible, but also audible. Incorporating insights from ethnomusicology, governmentality studies, and post-socialist studies, Audible States presents an original perspective on music and government that reveals the fluid, pervasive, but ultimately limited nature of state power in the modern world. A remarkably researched and engagingly written study, Audible States is a foundational text in the growing literature on popular music and culture in post-socialist Europe and will be of great interest for readers interested in popular music, sound studies, and the politics of the Cold War.

Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography that explores the global impact of jazz, detailing the evolution of the African American musical tradition as it has been absorbed, transformed, and expanded across the world’s historical, political, and social landscapes. With more than 1,300 annotated entries, this vast compilation covers a broad range of subjects, people, and geographic regions as they relate to interdisciplinary research in jazz studies. The result is a vivid demonstration of how cultures from every corner of the globe have situated jazz—often regarded as America’s classical music—within and beyond their own musical traditions, creating new artistic forms in the process. Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide presents jazz as a common musical language in a global landscape of diverse artistic expression.

Como ensinar e aprender história da arquitetura? Para responder essa inquietação de maneira certeira, são revisitados oito importantes livros panorâmicos sobre a arquitetura brasileira, produzidos em diferentes momentos do século XX e início do XXI. A organizadora e sua equipe de pesquisa exploram a possibilidade de combinar a medição quantitativa com interpretações de natureza mais subjetiva, revelando paradoxos complexos, não intuitivos, e talvez inesperados, dando forma a alguns dos "vazios do cânon" Este livro apresenta um conjunto metodológico de ferramentas para a revisão crítica de ideias repetidas e axiomas convertidos em cânones, possibilitando questionamentos e a abertura de novos caminhos. As tabelas e gráficos produzidos no livro são livremente interpretados e contraponteados pela visão de dezoito autores e autoras que contribuíram para o livro, desde jovens pesquisadores a renomados especialistas convidados/as. How to teach and learn architectural history? To answer this question, eight important panoramic books on Brazilian architecture, produced at different times in the twentieth century and early twenty-first, are revisited. The organizer and her research team explored the possibility of combining quantitative measurement extracted from these books with interpretations of a more subjective nature, revealing complex, non-intuitive, and unexpected paradoxes, shaping some of the "canon's voids". The book presents a methodological set of tools for the critical revision of repeated ideas and axioms converted into canons, allowing for questioning, and opening new paths. The tables and graphs produced in the book are freely interpreted and counterpointed by the views of eighteen contributing authors, ranging from young researchers to renowned guest experts. (Marcio Cotrim, Prof. Dr. Arquiteto, FAU-UFBA).