Description
Book SynopsisThe Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is more than a musical event that ostensibly unites European people through music. It is a spectacle: a performative event that allegorically represents the idea of Europe. Since its beginning in the Cold War era, the contest has functioned as a symbolic realm for the performance of European selves and the negotiation of European identities. Through the ESC, Europe is experienced, felt, and imagined in singing and dancing as the interplay of tropes of being local and/or European is enacted. In Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest, contributors interpret the ESC as a musical mediascape and mega-event that has variously performed and performs the changing visions of the European project. Through the study of the cultural politics of the ESC, contributors discuss the ways in which music operates as a dynamic nexus for making national identities and European sensibilities, generating processes of assimilation or integration, a
Trade Review[Empire of Song] will definitely interest a wide group of scholars and students of European music, history, culture, and popular music. . . .Most importantly, the authors demonstrate that whether tasteless or seriously sensitive, the Eurovision Song Contest is a praxis in which European modernities, ever shifting mindsets, and expanding borders are celebrated. * Ethnomusicology *
