New This Month in Film, Visual Culture, and Performing Arts - July 2024
New in Film:
New in our Afro-Latinx Futures series comes From Havana to Hollywood: Slave Resistance in the Cinematic Imaginary, by Philip Kaisary, centering on Cuban cinema to explore how films produced in Havana or Hollywood differently represent Black resistance to slavery.
"In bringing Cuban films to the fore, From Havana to Hollywood expands our understanding of films about slavery globally and illuminates the distinctive perspectives and contributions of Afro-Latin American histories and cultures. The book's lessons about depictions of oppressive regimes and resistance to them will be pertinent for students of Black cinema across national contexts." — Reighan Gillam, author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media
"From Havana to Hollywood offers a fascinating examination of Black agency and resistance as portrayed in film. The study is a joy to read, recuperating lesser-known films and offering important critiques of more famous ones such as 12 Years a Slave. Overall, Kaisary shows that, when films make slavery's evils seem individual rather than systemic, they hamper efforts to achieve reparative justice in the present." — Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, author of Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games
"From Havana to Hollywood reshapes how we think about the history of slavery. It can be read by a range of publics, from film fans to undergraduates to professional scholars. Anyone who does not know the films here will go on a mission to see them. Anyone who knows the films will learn far more about them." — Jerry W. Carlson, The City College and Graduate Center CUNY
New in Music:
Music's Making: The Poetry of Music, the Music of Poetry, by Michael Cherlin, is a personal voyage of discovery drawing on musicology, literary theory, Jewish studies, and philosophical phenomenology.
"This book exists along the interstice between disciplines, shedding the skin of 'academia' and the 'business' of teaching, Cherlin returns us to the real work of pedagogy, not only to the art and science of learning, to enquiry, but to the crucial relationship between the 'text' and 'tradition'. … what evolves is a musical intelligence born of experience, a passionate cantillation, which invokes a poetics of music. Drawing on a seemingly disparate set of references Cherlin leaves few doubts, the only direction is 'deeper' and from liminal spaces he'll guide you there." — James Dillon, five-time recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Music Award for Chamber-Scale Composition
"It is hard to imagine a more thoughtful book, imbued with a lifetime of profound philosophical meditations and musical experiences, as well as religious practices. The author's personal touch makes the book seem like a memoir about long-lasting intellectual friendships, or like a captivating seminar with many of the last century's leading thinkers." — Scott Burnham, Department of Music, CUNY Graduate Center
New in paperback this month, The Power of Practice: How Music and Yoga Transformed the Life and Work of Yehudi Menuhin, by Kristin Wendland, situates yoga practice within a musical context in the life and work of famed violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
"Beautifully written by a musician and practicing yogi, this book is both scholarly and easy to read while providing a comprehensive and detailed overview of a musician's life, well lived and greatly enhanced by an active yoga practice and the study of yoga philosophy." — Lesley McAllister, Baylor University School of Music
"A highly readable account of Iyengar and his teachings' lasting impact on Menuhin and Menuhin’s legacy." — Suzanne Newcombe, The Open University
New in Performing Arts:
Theatres of Value: Buying and Selling Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century New York City, by Danielle Rosvally, explores the value of Shakespeare for theatrical businesspeople and audiences in nineteenth-century New York City.
"In inventing what she calls 'the dramaturgy of value,' Danielle Rosvally examines economic conditions and applies specific business models to both familiar and lesser-known incidents in the creation, marketing, and consumption of nineteenth-century American Shakespearean performance. In doing so, she uncovers layer upon layer of cultural significance, demonstrating how producers, actors, and audiences helped to create America’s emerging sense of nationhood and national identity." — Cary M. Mazer, author of Double Shakespeares: Emotional-Realist Acting and Contemporary Performance
Theatres of Value takes an interdisciplinary approach that enriches historical analysis and helps readers understand familiar Shakespeare archives in new ways. Rosvally's work is conceptually nuanced yet highly readable—her engaging storytelling unfolds against a theoretical backdrop knit from theatre history, social and economic theory, performance studies, cultural studies, and rhetorical history.” — Elisabeth H. Kinsley, author of Here in This Island We Arrived: Shakespeare and Belonging in Immigrant New York
Happy reading and come back and see what's new next month!
