Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest
The 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,” and defining the celebrated notion of the “European citizen” in a global context. Scholars in the volume also explore the ways otherness and difference are produced, spectacularized, challenged, or even neglected in the televised musical realities of the ESC. For the contributing authors, song serves as a site for constituting Europe and the nation, on- and offstage. History and politics, as well as the constant production of European subjectivities, are sounded in song. The Eurovision song is a shifting realm where old and new states imagine their pasts, question their presents, and envision ideal futures in the New Europe.

Essays in Empire of Song adopt theoretical and epistemological orientations in their exploration of “popular music” within ethnomusicology and critical musicology, questioning the idea of “Europe” and the “nation” through and in music, at a time when the European self appears more fragmented, if not entirely shattered. Bringing together ethnomusicology, music studies, history, social anthropology, feminist theory, linguistics, media ethnography, postcolonial theory, comparative literature, and philosophy, Empire of Song will interest students and scholars in a vast array of disciplines.
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Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest
The 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,” and defining the celebrated notion of the “European citizen” in a global context. Scholars in the volume also explore the ways otherness and difference are produced, spectacularized, challenged, or even neglected in the televised musical realities of the ESC. For the contributing authors, song serves as a site for constituting Europe and the nation, on- and offstage. History and politics, as well as the constant production of European subjectivities, are sounded in song. The Eurovision song is a shifting realm where old and new states imagine their pasts, question their presents, and envision ideal futures in the New Europe.

Essays in Empire of Song adopt theoretical and epistemological orientations in their exploration of “popular music” within ethnomusicology and critical musicology, questioning the idea of “Europe” and the “nation” through and in music, at a time when the European self appears more fragmented, if not entirely shattered. Bringing together ethnomusicology, music studies, history, social anthropology, feminist theory, linguistics, media ethnography, postcolonial theory, comparative literature, and philosophy, Empire of Song will interest students and scholars in a vast array of disciplines.
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Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest

Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest

Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest

Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest

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Overview

The 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,” and defining the celebrated notion of the “European citizen” in a global context. Scholars in the volume also explore the ways otherness and difference are produced, spectacularized, challenged, or even neglected in the televised musical realities of the ESC. For the contributing authors, song serves as a site for constituting Europe and the nation, on- and offstage. History and politics, as well as the constant production of European subjectivities, are sounded in song. The Eurovision song is a shifting realm where old and new states imagine their pasts, question their presents, and envision ideal futures in the New Europe.

Essays in Empire of Song adopt theoretical and epistemological orientations in their exploration of “popular music” within ethnomusicology and critical musicology, questioning the idea of “Europe” and the “nation” through and in music, at a time when the European self appears more fragmented, if not entirely shattered. Bringing together ethnomusicology, music studies, history, social anthropology, feminist theory, linguistics, media ethnography, postcolonial theory, comparative literature, and philosophy, Empire of Song will interest students and scholars in a vast array of disciplines.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780810886995
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date: 07/11/2013
Series: Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities , #15
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 9.10(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Dafni Tragaki is the author of Rebetiko Worlds: Ethnomusicology and Ethnography in the City (2007). She is currently editing a book on popular music in Greece.

Table of Contents

Foreword: War without Tears: European Broadcasting and Competition Franco Fabbri vii

Introduction Dafni Tragaki 1

1 Tempus Edax Rerum: Time and the Making of the Eurovision Song Philip V. Bohlman 35

2 Eurovision Everywhere: A Kaleidoscopic Vision of the Grand Prix Andrea F. Bohlman Ioannis Polychronakis 57

3 The Nordic Brotherhoods: Eurovision as a Platform for Partnership and Competition Annemette Kirkegaard 79

4 The Big Match: Literature, Cinema, and the Sanremo Festival Deception Goffredo Plastino 109

5 Performing Affiliation: On Topos in the Swedish Preliminaries Karin Strand 137

6 Delimiting the Eurobody: Historicity, Politicization, Queerness Apostolos Lampropoulos 151

7 The Oriental Body on the European Stage: Producing Turkish Cultural Identity on the Margins of Europe Thomas Solomon 173

8 Invincible Heroes: The Musical Construction of National and European Identities in Swedish Eurovision Song Contest Entries Alf Björnberg 203

9 "And After Love…": Eurovision, Portuguese Popular Culture, and the Carnation Revolution Luisa Pinto Teixeira Martin Stokes 221

10 The Monsters' Dream: Fantasies of the Empire Within Dafni Tragaki 241

11 The Rise and Fall of the Singing Tiger: Ireland and Eurovision Tony Langlois 261 261

12 Doing the European Two-Step Andrea F. Bohlman Alexander Rehding 281

Index 299

About the Contributors 317

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