Resounding Pasts

The field of memory studies has long been preoccupied with the manner in which events from the past are commemorated, forgotten, re-fashioned, or worked through on both the individual and collective level. Yet in an age when various modes of artistic and cultural commemoration have begun to overlap with and respond to one another, the dynamics of cultural remembering and forgetting become bound up in an increasingly elaborate network of representations that operate both within and outside temporal, cultural, and national borders. As publicly circulating texts that straddle the line between cultural artifact and artistic object, both musical and literary works, both individually and often in conjunction with one another, help shape cultural memories and individual experiences of those events. Troping their cultural milieux through specific aesthetic and social forms, genres, and modes of dissemination, music and literature become part of a growing global panoply of raw materials upon which we might begin to pose questions regarding the way we remember, the consequences of sharing and passing on those memories, and the aesthetic and cultural pressures attendant upon the circulation and interpretation of texts that (re-)sound the past.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1870.

This book vibrantly demonstrates how the study of music allows for identification and interpretation of the forces that form Taiwanese society, from politics and policy to reactions to and assertions of such policies. Contributors to this edited volume explore how music shapes life — and life shapes music — in Taiwan, focusing on subjects ranging from musical life under Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945) through to the contemporary creations of Indigenous musicians, popular music performance and production, Christian religious music, traditional ritual music and theatre, conceptions about sound and noise, and garbage truck music's role in reducing household waste. The volume’s twelve chapters present diverse approaches to their sounding subjects, some deeply rooted in the methods and concerns explored by Taiwan's first generation of ethnomusicologists. Others employ current social theories. Presenting a window into the cultural lives of the residents of this multicultural, politically contested island, Resounding Taiwan will appeal to students and scholars of musicology and ethnomusicology, anthropology and Asian studies more widely.

Resounding the Rhetorical offers an original critical and theoretical examination of composition as a quasi-object. As composition flourishes in multiple media (digital, sonic, visual, etc.), Byron Hawk seeks to connect new materialism with current composition scholarship and critical theory. Using sound and music as his examples, he demonstrates how a quasi-object can and does materialize for communicative and affective expression, and becomes a useful mechanism for the study and execution of composition as a discipline. Through careful readings of Serres, Latour, Deleuze, Heidegger, and others, Hawk reconstructs key concepts in the field including composition, process, research, collaboration, publics, and rhetoric. His work delivers a cutting-edge response to the state of the field, where it is headed, and the possibilities for postprocess and postwriting composition and rhetoric.

Bringing together exciting new interdisciplinary work from emerging and established scholars in the UK and beyond, Litpop addresses the question: how has writing past and present been influenced by popular music, and vice versa? Contributions explore how various forms of writing have had a crucial role to play in making popular music what it is, and how popular music informs ’literary’ writing in diverse ways. The collection features musicologists, literary critics, experts in cultural studies, and creative writers, organised in three themed sections. ’Making Litpop’ explores how hybrids of writing and popular music have been created by musicians and authors. ’Thinking Litpop’ considers what critical or intellectual frameworks help us to understand these hybrid cultural forms. Finally, ’Consuming Litpop’ examines how writers deal with music’s influence, how musicians engage with literary texts, and how audiences of music and writing understand their own role in making ’Litpop’ happen. Discussing a range of genres and periods of writing and popular music, this unique collection identifies, theorizes, and problematises connections between different forms of expression, making a vital contribution to popular musicology, and literary and cultural studies.

Evil isn't simply an abstract theological or philosophical talking point. In our society, the idea of evil feeds entertainment, manifests in all sorts of media, and is a root concept in our collective psyche. This accessible and appealing book examines what evil means to us. Evil has been with us since the Garden of Eden, when Eve unleashed evil by biting the apple. Outside of theology, evil remains a highly relevant concept in contemporary times: evil villains in films and literature make these stories entertaining; our criminal justice system decides the fate of convicted criminals based on the determination of their status as "evil" or "insane." This book examines the many manifestations of "evil" in modern media, making it clear how this idea pervades nearly all aspects of life and helping us to reconsider some of the notions about evil that pop culture perpetuates and promotes. Covering screen media such as film, television, and video games; print media that include novels and poetry; visual media like art and comics; music; and political polemics, the essays in this book address an eclectic range of topics. The diverse authors include Americans who left the United States during the Vietnam War era, conservative Christian political pundits, rock musicians, classical linguists, Disney fans, scholars of American slavery, and experts on Holocaust literature and films. From portrayals of evil in the television shows The Wire and 24 to the violent lyrics of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse to the storylines of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter books, readers will find themselves rethinking what evil is—and how they came to hold their beliefs.